cious an introduction, saying, you cannot be elevated in this country, you must remove. The speaker of these words was a man of great intelligence and worth, who occupies a conspicuous place in one of our public institutions, but a strong anti-colonizationist, and a valued member of the Anti-Slavery Society. Not very long after, the same speaker expressed his conviction, that the colored race are by nature inferior to the whites, and can never become their equals; nor did he perceive his own unreasonableness, till the reply was made to him, "You said before, that colonization was ungracious; but how much more honorable to the blacks are the sentiments of myself,—a colonization man, who believe indeed, that their race cannot for a long period, and perhaps never, while remaining in this land, be elevated to equality with the whites, by reason only of certain circumstances,-than the views of yourself, an anti-colonization man, who believe they can never be elevated to that equality, under any circumstances, by reason of their very nature?"

It should be remarked further, that whatever censure may justly be applied to the unkind spirit which is manifest in one part of the twelve quotations given under this head by our author, it may be truly said of the remainder, that, whether they are judicious or not, their application to the purpose intended, depends entirely upon their connection in the articles from which they have been taken. There is certainly nothing on the face of this latter portion, which determines that they had their origin in hatred to the blacks; and in the case of the last quotation especially, from the African Repository, it will be a surprise to us if we do not find upon referring to the printed document itself, which we have not at this present time the means of doing,* that this very sentence

*On referring to the document itself, as we have had opportunity to do since the remarks above were penned, what do we find? Reader, behold!

"Poverty can find access to the halls of wisdom in one place rises an asyJum for the deaf and dumb, in another a blessed retreat for the insane; the wretched female is invited into a place of refuge; the distressed orphans find a home of peace and virtue; and the destitute, sick, and aged, and infirm, the friendless stranger and worn-out mariner, see mansions prepared for them by the rulers of our land, and have offered to them a couch of repose and the kindest ministrations of religion.

"There is a class, however, more numerous than all these, introduced among us by violence, notoriously ignorant, degraded and miserable, mentally diseased, broken-spirited, acted upon by no motives to honorable exertions, scarcely reached in their debasement by the heavenly light; yet where is the sympathy and effort which a view of their condition ought to excite? They wander unsettled and unbefriended through our land, or sit indolent, abject and sorrowful, by the 'streams which witness their captivity. Their freedom is licentiousness, and to many, restraint would prove a blessing. To this remark there are exceptions; exceptions PROVING, that to change their state would be to elevate their character, that virtue and enterprise are absent, ONLY because absent are the causes which create the one, and the motives which produce the other."

The italics and capitals are our own. We will not attempt to guide or to

was introduced as a sincere argument,-whether a sound one or not, is not now the question,-for bettering the condition of these people, by taking them out from under that condition of evil and unfortunate influence, whose deep-rooted existence is an unhappy truth. It may be all imagination, and doubtless if it be not so, the circumstance was entirely unsuspected by our author; but we fancy, that there is apparent in the paragraph with which the quotations are followed up, and which we give at length, some secret consciousness of a necessity, just at this spot, of assisting the reader to a right impression by means of inuendoes,—thus :

We may here remark, that the tone of these extracts is very different from that used when the speaker desires to excite sympathy for the wretched. We are told that these people are vicious and debased, but no hint is given that their vice and debasement are the result of sinful prejudices and cruel laws. No appeal is made to the spirit of christianity to pour oil and wine into the wound of suffering humanity. We are not reminded, that these wretches are our brethren, for whom Christ died. Nothing is omitted to impress us with a sense of the depth of the misery into which they are plunged; but for what object are these frightful pictures presented to us? Is it to urge us to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to instruct the ignorant, and to reform the wicked? No, but to transport them to Africa!' Jay, p. 19.

Now, inasmuch as the word "transport" is as germane to Botany Bay as it is to Liberia, and has come by use to have, on that account, a disagreeable association, arising out of the criminal jurisprudence of a foreign nation; and inasmuch as the word colonize has come, by its connection with great analogies in the history of civilized nations and the foundation of mighty empires, to have a noble and soul-exciting association; it would have been counter to all the laws which regulate the hostility of antagonist minds, for Mr. Jay to have written colonize, instead of transport. The reader is requested, however, to go over the paragraph again, from the beginning, with the single substitution, to colonize them in Africa. We prefer, however, ourselves, to take it without the change; and we say, that if the effect of transporting to Africa is proved to

express the emotions of the reader. We only bid him notice two palpable facts:

1. It is not the free blacks alone who are spoken of in the passage cited by Mr. Jay. The writer is speaking of the blacks as a class, distinctly including bond and free.

2. There is no design and no tendency to justify or excuse oppression or prejudice, or to discourage any attempt at improving the condition of the persons spoken of; but on the contrary, the design and tendency of the passage is to awaken sympathy and effort, by resisting prejudice.

We will not believe that Mr. Jay, in this and similar instances, has not been imposed upon, by taking at second-hand the notoriously unfair quotations of Mr. Garrison.

be this, to endow unhappy and oppressed men with a full enjoyment of their privileges and rights, it might be the very noblest purpose for which frightful pictures could possibly be presented; so that Mr. Jay's attitude, at this instant, is much the same as if he had said to some assembled board of internal improvement, "And why is all this expenditure of money and time, this bustle of men and engines,-this crowding of passengers into carriages? is it to feed the hungry among them,-to clothe the naked,-to benefit, by salutary truth, their undying but depraved souls? No, but to transport them on a rail!" Undoubtedly, Mr. Jay, it is so; and undoubtedly, as the subject of all these aforementioned appeals was colonization, the purpose designed was not directly to clothe or feed the colored poor, but to transport as many as desire to be transported, rather than to remain. The question is not now respecting the wisdom of the plan, but respecting its real motive; and if it should appear to be the most futile scheme for promoting human happiness, that ever entered the head of a projector, that has nothing to do with our present point of disagreement. You bave said, that these appeals which you have quoted, were made for the purpose of aggravating the prejudice against the free blacks, in order that men, abominating them more than ever, may give more money than ever for their removal. You have presented these appeals as a few specimens only of a great class, and as exhibiting, on the whole, the true character of that mass of speaking and writing upon the subject, which has been before the people for these twenty years. We say, on the other hand, that all unprejudiced New-England is witness, that those of her pastors and of her self-denying beneficent laymen, who have held, and have constantly listened to, language on this topic, and who have composed the only efficient body of colonizationists through all her bounds, have never harbored such an idea, and would never for a moment have endured it; in short, that the great prevailing motive of New-England colonization has been benevolent. But why, say you, adhere so closely to New-England? Because, we reply, our argument is on New-England ground; the matter at stake is New-England influence; and we choose to debate the character of colonization at the spot where the heart of colonization beats, and not at the extremities, where the question of its character is far less vital, and where we all have far less means of judging what that character is.

We now come to the quotations which, in Mr. Jay's book, follow, and are intended to sustain the two principal propositions already mentioned. Of these we shall give as many as shall suffice to convey an idea of the whole :

'SEVERE NECESSITY places them (free negroes) in a class

of degraded beings.' Address of Mr. Rives to Lynchburgh Col. Soc. Afr. Rep. vol. v. p. 238.

The severe legislation, I will not say, that under all circumstances it is too severe, the severe legislation of the slave states, which drives their emancipated blacks to the free states, and scatters the NUISANCE there, attests that we have a share in this evil.' G. Smith, Esq. Vice President, 14th Report, p. xiii.

Speech of

The habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society,—prejudices which neither refinement, nor argument, nor education, NOR RELIGION ITSELF CAN subdue, mark the people of color, whether bond or free, as the subjects of a degradation inevitable and incurable.' Address of the Connecticut Col. Soc.

'We do not ask that the provisions of our constitution and statutebook should be so modified as to relieve and exalt the condition of the colored people whilst they remain with us. Let these provisions stand in ALL THEIR RIGOR, to work out the ultimate and unbounded good of these people.' Memorial of the New-York State Col. Soc. to the Legislature.

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If we were constrained to admire so uncommon a being,' (a pious, highly-cultivated, scientific negro,) our very admiration would be mingled with disgust, because in the physical organization of his frame we meet an insurmountable barrier even to approach to social intercourse, and in the Egyptian color which nature has stamped on his features, a principle of repulsion so strong as to forbid the idea of a communion either of interest or of feeling as utterly abhorrent.' Afr. Rep. vol. vii. p. 331.

To the foregoing we add one from a source not quoted by Mr. Jay:

'Now, when to ignorance, degradation of caste, and a great deficiency of those qualities, intellectual, moral and pecuniary, which secure social equality, is added THAT PHYSICAL REPUGNANCE on the part of the whites so earnestly alledged, it seems to me, that a stronger barrier of defense in the premises, [the possibility of contracting marriages,] could not be erected.' J. G. Birney's letter upon slavery.

If, as Mr. Birney admits, there really exists a "physical repugnance," as is "so earnestly alledged," then it seems not unreasonable to say, as the Connecticut Colonization Society are stated to have said, that "religion itself" cannot subdue it. We do not ourselves consent to either the one proposition or the other. But as to the last, the generous interpretation of the language of the Connecticut Society would have thrown the mere letter aside, and made their meaning, whether in itself tenable or not, as a point of doctrine, to appear thus: not, as Mr. Jay would interpret it, that our "blessed religion" has not the power of "changing the heart, subduing evil affections, and removing unholy prejudices;" but, as

Mr. Jay will not interpret it, that in matter of fact, these "prejudices" will continue to exist in spite of "refinement," of "argument," of "education," and of "religion itself." None but a perfectionist would seriously deem the power of religion to change the heart, called in question by any one who should base a conclusion upon the idea that selfishness, or indolence, or prejudice, or any similar form of sin, will continue to exist in spite of "religion itself." Let us be careful not to excuse what is censurable. The expression used by the Connecticut Colonization Society has certainly by itself an incautious appearance, and there is a purpose for which it might most usefully be quoted: still, the rule is a good one, -whether ever before laid down in these words we do not aver,-not to strain at a meaning as being inexpressibly unutterable, when the language seems to be only ill-advised. The effort, in a solid and valuable work, to make the worst out of bad, bad out of doubtful, and indifferent out of good, puts it lower by at least one degree in a reader's confidence, than if bad were shown as bad, doubtful as doubtful, indifferent as indifferent, and the good left to itself.

As to the expression respecting the legislation of the South, quoted by Mr. Jay as having come from "a most worthy colonizationist and a distinguished officer of the society," as it has been taken not from the mouth nor the pen of that individual, but from the hearsay evidence of a reported speech, it is not altogether unreasonable to question, whether such an expression, in the shape in which it stands as quoted, was ever in fact uttered by the reputed speaker. Appearing, however, where it does, on the pages of the African Repository, it is so far fair evidence for the purpose with reference to which it has been cited by Mr. Jay, whether it was ever spoken or not; and there ought to be no effort to avert the legitimate effect of that or any similar evidence, whatever it may be. Our author has entered into an exposition of the laws enacted in the slave states, respecting their colored population, which shows them to be execrable beyond endurance. And in terms scarcely less mild, ought the Connecticut proceedings in relation to the education of that race, to be spoken of. It is just and proper, that the Canterbury proceedings and the black-act should be made, as Mr. Jay has made them, the odium of this generation. And it was more than proper, it was a strong necessity, that the judicial decision which would have taken from our colored population their rights of citizenship, and which by the way is not yet, and is not likely to be, law in the State of Connecticut, should be thoroughly sifted and scattered, like chaff to the winds,

But in all this exposition, as well as in all other of this sort, Mr. Jay has kept in view one darling object, and has striven to make colonization the subject of that bitter hatred and contempt, the exercise of which in his own mind, seems in a measure to overVOL. VII. 67