Thoughts on African Colonization

Colonizationists boast inordinately of having emancipated three or four hundred slaves by their scheme, and contemptuously inquire of abolitionists, 'What have you effected?' Many persons have been deceived by this show of success, and deem it conclusive evidence of the usefulness of the Colonization Society. But, in the first place, it is very certain that none of these slaves were liberated in consequence of the faithful appeals of the Society to the consciences of the masters; for it has never troubled their consciences by any such appeals. Secondly, it is obvious that these manumissions are the fruits of the uncompromising doctrines of abolitionists; for they are calculated to bring slaveholders to repentance, and they will yet liberate other slaves to be caught up and claimed by the Society as trophies of its success. Thirdly, it has been shown that while this Society (allowing it the utmost that it claims) is effecting very little and very doubtful good, it is inflicting upon the nation great and positive evil, by refusing to arraign the oppressors at the bar of eternal justice, and by obstructing the formation of abolition societies. It rivets a thousand fetters where it breaks one. It annually removes, on an average, two hundred of our colored population, whereas the annual increase is about seventy thousand. It releases some scores of slaves, and says to the owners of more than two millions – 'Hold on! don't emancipate too fast!'

What have the abolitionists done? They have done more, during the past year, to overthrow the system of slavery, than has been accomplished by the gradualists in half a century. They have succeeded in fastening the attention of the nation upon its enormities, and in piercing the callous consciences of the planters. They are reforming and consolidating public opinion, dispelling the mists of error, inspiring the hearts of the timid, enlightening the eyes of the blind, and disturbing the slumbers of the guilty. Colonizationists gather a few leaves which the tree has cast off, and vaunt of the deed: abolitionists 'lay the axe at once to its roots, and put their united nerve into the steel' – nor shall their strokes be in vain – for soon shall 'this great poison-tree of lust and blood, and of all abominable and heartless iniquity, fall before them; and law and love, and God and man, shout victory over its ruin.'

Has the reader duly considered the fatal admissions of the advocates of the colonization scheme, presented in the preceding pages? Some of them it may be serviceable to the cause of truth and justice to recapitulate.

1. The Society does not aim directly at the instruction of the blacks: their moral, intellectual and political improvement within the United States, is foreign to its powers.

2. The public safety forbids either the emancipation or the general instruction of the slaves.

3. The Society properly enough stands aloof from the question of slavery.

4. It is ready to pass censure upon abolition societies.

5. It involves no intrusion on property, nor even upon prejudice.

6. It has no wish, if it could, to interfere in the smallest degree with the system of slavery.

7. It acknowledges the necessity by which the present continuance of the system and the rigorous provisions for its maintenance are justified.

8. It denies the design of attempting emancipation either partial or general: into its accounts the subject of emancipation does not enter at all: it has no intention to open the door to universal liberty.

9. The rights of masters are to remain sacred in the eyes of the Society.

10. It condemns no man because he is a slaveholder.

Each of these particulars deserves a volume of comments, but I am compelled to dismiss them in rotation with a single remark.

1. One reason assigned by the Society for refusing to promote the education of our colored population, is, a dread of exciting 'the prejudices and terrors of the slaveholding States'! Is it credible? As far, then, as this Society extends its influence, more than two millions of ignorant, degraded beings in this boasted land of liberty and light have nothing to hope: their moral, intellectual and political improvement is foreign to its powers! Cruel neglect! barbarous coalition! A sinful fear of rousing the prejudices of oppressors outweighs the claims of the contemned blacks, the requirements of the gospel, the dictates of humanity, and the convictions of duty. Will this plea avail aught at the bar of God? Millions of our countrymen purposely kept in darkness, although we are able to pour daylight upon their vision, merely to gratify and protect their buyers and sellers!

2. There never was a more abominable or more absurd heresy propagated, than the assumption that the public safety would be jeoparded by an immediate compliance with the demands of justice: yet it has obtained among all orders of society. Even ministers of the gospel, who are bound to cry aloud, and spare not, – to lift up their voices like a trumpet, and show this guilty nation its sins, – to say to the holders of slaves, 'Loose the bands of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke,' – even they fly to this subterfuge, and deprecate a general emancipation. On this subject, 'they know not what they do;' they reason like madmen or atheists; they advance sentiments which unhinge the moral government of the universe, and directly encourage the commission of the most heinous crimes. How long would any one of their number retain his situation, if he were to preach in explicit terms to his congregation as follows? – 'My dear hearers, if any among you are daily oppressing the weak, or defrauding the poor, do not cease from your robbery and cruelty at once, as you value your own happiness and the welfare of society! Relax your tyrannous grasp gradually from the throat of your neighbor, and steal not quite so much from him this year as you did the last!' – But they emphatically hold this language whenever they advise slaveholders not to repent en masse, or too hastily. The public safety, they say, forbids emancipation! or, in other words, the public safety depends upon your persistance in cheating, whipping, starving, debasing your slaves! Nay, more – many of them, horrible to tell, are traffickers in human flesh! 'For this thing which it cannot bear, the earth is disquieted. The gospel of peace and mercy preached by him who steals, buys and sells the purchase of Messiah's blood! – rulers of the church making merchandize of their brethren's souls! – and Christians trading the persons of men!'10

3. The system of slavery is full of danger, outrage, desolation and death – 'a volcano in full operation' – a monster that is annually supplied with sixty thousand new victims, devoured as soon as born – and yet the Colonization Society 'properly enough stands aloof' from it!! It utters no lamentations – makes no supplications – gives no rebukes – presents no motives for repentance!

4. The Society is not only ready to pass, but it is constantly bestowing its censure upon abolition societies. It represents their members as guided by a visionary, wild and fanatical spirit, as invaders of rights which are sacred, incendiaries, disturbers of the peace of society, and enemies to the safety and happiness of the planters. Determining itself to avoid the question of emancipation – to leave millions of human beings to pine in bondage without exposing the guilt of the oppressors – it endeavors to prevent any other association agitating the subject. Hence between colonization and abolition societies there is no affinity of feeling or action; and hence arises the cause, inexplicable to many, why they cannot pursue their objects amicably together.

5. The attempt of the Society to conciliate the holders of slaves must result either in disappointment, or in an abandonment of the path of duty. If they are guilty of robbery and oppression, they must be arraigned as criminals, or they never will reform: for why should honest, benevolent men change their conduct? If, through a false delicacy of feeling or cringing policy, their wickedness be covered up, alas for the slaves, and alas for the regeneration of the south! all hope is lost.

6. The Society has no wish, if it could, to interfere with the system of slavery! Monstrous indifference, or barbarous cruelty! And yet it presumes to occupy the whole ground of the controversy, and to direct the actions of the friends of the blacks throughout the land! By the phrase 'interfere,' is meant no desire to contest the claims of the planters to their bondmen, or to kindle the indignation of the people against their atrocious practices.

7. It appears that all those terrible enactments which have been made for the government of the slaves – such, for example, as forbid their learning to read under the penalty of stripes, and even death – are acknowledged by the Society to be necessary for the maintenance of order! What a concession!

8. Sometimes we are told that the Society is aiming at the liberation of all the slaves, and then that it has no design of attempting either partial or general emancipation: so contradictory are its assurances! It is manifest that it does not mean to touch the question of slavery; and hence the imperious necessity of forming abolition societies.

9. The rights of masters are to remain sacred in the eyes of the Society! What rights? Those by which the intelligent creatures of God are bought and sold and used like cattle? those which are founded upon piracy, cruelty and outrage?11 Yes! This, then, is an abandonment of the ground of right and justice, and ends the controversy between truth and error.

10. It condemns no man because he is a slaveholder! Certainly, then, it allows that slaveholders are upright men – not guilty of fraud – not oppressors – not extortioners! and that the slaves are truly and justly their property – not entitled to freedom – not better than cattle – not conscious of evil treatment – not worthy of remuneration for their toil – not rational and accountable beings!

SECTION II

THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY APOLOGISES FOR SLAVERY AND SLAVEHOLDERS

My charges against the American Colonization Society acquire breadth and solemnity as I progress in my task. I have fairly and abundantly sustained my first, —that the Society is not the enemy of the slave-system; and I now proceed to prove my second, —that it apologises for slavery and slaveholders.

'There is a golden mean, which all who would pursue the solid interest and reputation of their country may discern at the very heart of their confederation, and will both advocate and enforce – a principle, of justice, conciliation and humanity – a principle, sir, which is not inconsistent with itself, and yet can sigh over the degradation of the slave, defend the wisdom and prudence of the South against the charge of studied and pertinacious cruelty,' &c. – [Address of Robert F. Stockton, Esq. at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Parent Society.]

'It is a fact, given us on the most unquestionable authority, that there are now in the southern States of our union, hundreds, and even thousands of proprietors, who would gladly give liberty to their slaves, but are deterred by the apprehension of doing injury to their country, and perhaps to the slaves themselves.' – [Discourse by the Rev. Dr. Dana. – African Repository, vol. i. p. 145.]

'Guarding that system, the existence of which, though unfortunate, THEY DEEM NECESSARY.' – [African Repository, vol. i. p. 227.]

'We all know from a variety of considerations which it is unnecessary to name, and in consequence of the policy which is obliged to be pursued in the southern States, that it is extremely difficult to free a slave, and hence the enactment of those laws which a fatal necessity seems to demand.' – [African Repository, vol. ii. p. 12.]

'They are convinced, that there are now hundreds of masters who are so only from necessity.' – [Memorial of the Society to the several States. – A. R. vol. ii. p. 60.]

'I do not condemn, let me be understood, their detention in bondage under the circumstances which are yet existing.' – ['The Colonization Society Vindicated.' – Idem, vol. iii. p. 201.]

'A third point in which the first promoters of this object were united, is, that few individual slaveholders can, in the present state of things, emancipate their slaves if they would. There is a certain relation between the proprietor of slaves and the beings thus thrown upon him, which is far more complicated, and far less easily dissolved, than a mind unacquainted with the subject is ready to imagine. The relation is one which, where it exists, grows out of the very structure of society, and for the existence of which, the master is ordinarily as little accountable as the slave.'

'He [the planter] looks around him and sees that the condition of the great mass of emancipated Africans is one in comparison with which the condition of his slaves is enviable; – and he is convinced that if he withdraws from his slaves his authority, his support, his protection, and leaves them to shift for themselves, he turns them out to be vagabonds, and paupers, and felons, and to find in the work-house and the penitentiary, the home which they ought to have retained on his paternal acres. – Hundreds of humane and Christian slaveholders retain their fellow-men in bondage, because they are convinced that they can do no better.' – [Address of the Managers of the Colonization Society of Connecticut. – Af. Rep. vol. iv. pp. 119, 120.]

'I am not complaining of the owners of slaves; they cannot get rid of them. —I do not doubt that masters treat their slaves with kindness, nor that the slaves are happier than they could be if set free in this country.' – [Address delivered before the Hampden Col. Soc., July 4th, 1828, by Wm. B. O. Peabody, Esq.]

'Policy, and even the voice of humanity forbade the progress of manumission; and the salutary hand of law came forward to co-operate with our convictions, and to arrest the flow of our feelings, and the ardor of our desires.' – [Review of the Report of the Committee of Foreign Relations. – Af. Rep. vol. iv. p. 268.]

'When an owner of slaves tells me that he will freely relinquish his slaves, or even that he will relinquish one-half of their value, on condition that he be compensated for the other half, and provision be made for their transportation, I feel that he has made a generous proposal, and I cannot charge him with all the guilt of slavery, though he may continue to be a slaveholder.' – [Af. Rep. vol. v. p. 63.]

'Even slavery must be viewed as a great national calamity; a public evil entailed upon us by untoward circumstances, and perpetuated for the want of appropriate remedies.' – [Idem, vol. v. p. 89.]

'Slavery is an evil which is entailed upon the present generation of slaveholders, which they must suffer, whether they will or not.' – [Idem, p. 179.]

'Our brethren of the South, have the same sympathies, the same moral sentiments, the same love of liberty as ourselves. By them as by us, slavery is felt to be an evil, a hindrance to our prosperity, and a blot upon our character. But it was in being when they were born, and has been forced upon them by a previous generation.' – [Address of Rev. Dr. Nott. – Idem, p. 277.]

'With a writer in the Southern Review we say, "the situation of the people of these States was not of their choosing. When they came to the inheritance, it was subject to this mighty incumbrance, and it would be criminal in them to rain or waste the estate, to get rid of the burden at once." With this writer we add also, in the language of Captain Hall, that the "slaveholders ought not (immediately) to disentangle themselves from the obligations which have devolved upon them, as the masters of slaves." We believe that a master may sustain his relation to the slave, with as little criminality as the slave sustains his relation to the master.' * * * 'Slavery, in its mildest form, is an evil of the darkest character. Cruel and unnatural in its origin, no plea can be urged in justification of its continuance but the plea of necessity.' – [Af. Rep. vol. v. pp. 329, 334.]

'How much more consistent and powerful would be our example, but for that population within our limits, whose condition (necessary condition, I will not deny) is so much at war with our institutions, and with that memorable national Declaration – "that all men are created equal."' – [Fourteenth Ann. Report.]

'It [the Society] condemns no man because he is a slaveholder.' * * * 'They [abolitionists] confound the misfortunes of one generation with the crimes of another, and would sacrifice both individual and public good to an unsubstantial theory of the rights of man.' – [A. R. vol. vii. pp. 200, 202.]

'Many thousand individuals in our native State, you well know, Mr President, are restrained, said Mr Mercer, from manumitting their slaves, as you and I are, by the melancholy conviction, that they cannot yield to the suggestions of humanity, without manifest injury to their country.' * * * 'The laws of Virginia now discourage, and very wisely, perhaps, the emancipation of slaves.' – [Speech of Mr Mercer. – First Annual Report.]

'We are ready even to grant, for our present purpose, that, so far as mere animal existence is concerned, the slaves have no reason to complain, and the friends of humanity have no reason to complain for them.' * * * 'There are men in the southern states, who long to do something effectual for the benefit of their slaves, and would gladly emancipate them, did not prudence and compassion alike forbid such a measure.' – [Review of the Reports of the Society, from the Christian Spectator. – Seventh Annual Report.]

'Such unhappily is the case; but there is a necessity for it, [for oppressive laws,] and so long as they remain amongst us will that necessity continue.' – [Ninth Annual Report.]

'I may be permitted to declare that I would be a slaveholder to-day without scruple.' – [Fourteenth Annual Report.]

'For the existence of slavery in the United States, those, and those only, are accountable who bore a part in originating such a constitution of society. The bible contains no explicit prohibition of slavery. There is neither chapter nor verse of holy writ, which lends any countenance to the fulminating spirit of universal emancipation, of which some exhibitions may be seen in some of the newspapers.' * * * 'The embarrassment which many a philanthropic proprietor has felt in relation to his slaves, has been but little known at the north, and has had but little sympathy. He finds himself the lord of perhaps a hundred human beings; and is anxious to do them all the good in his power. He would emancipate them; but if he does, their prospect of happiness can hardly be said to be improved by the change. Some half a dozen, perhaps, in the hundred, become industrious and useful members of society; and the rest are mere vagabonds, idle, wicked, and miserable.'

– [Review on African Colonization. – Vide the Christian Spectator for September, 1830, in which the reader will find an elaborate apology for the system of slavery, and this, too, by a clergyman!]

'The existence of slavery among us, though not at all to be objected to our southern brethren as a fault, is yet a blot on our national character, and a mighty drawback from our national strength.' – [Second Annual Report of the N. Y. State Col. Soc.]

'Entertaining these views of this fearful subject, why should our opponents endeavor to prejudice our cause with our southern friends? And we are the more anxious on this point, for we sincerely entertain exalted notions of their sense of right, of their manliness and independence of feeling – of their dignity of deportment – of their honorable and chivalric turn of thought, which spurns a mean act as death. And if I was allowed to indulge a personal feeling, I would say that there is something to my mind in the candor, hospitality and intelligence of the South, which charms and captives, which wins its way to the heart and gives assurance of all that is upright, honorable, and humane. There is no people that treat their slaves with so little cruelty and with so much kindness. There is nothing in the condition of slavery more congenial with the feelings of the South than with the feelings of the North. Philanthropy and benevolence flourish with as much vigor with them as with us – their hearts are as warm as ours – they feel for the distresses of others with as much acuteness as we do – their ears are as open to the calls of charity as ours – they as deeply regret as we do the existence of slavery – and oh! how their hearts would thrill with delight, if the mighty incubus could be removed without injury or destruction to every thing around them.' – [Speech of James S. Green, Esq. on the same occasion.]

'Many of the best citizens of our land are holders of slaves, and hold them IN STRICT ACCORDANCE WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMANITY AND JUSTICE.' – [Rev. Thomas T. Skillman, editor of the Western Luminary, an ardent supporter of the Col. Soc.]

'It is a very common impression that a principal evil of the condition of the southern blacks, is the severity of their treatment. This is an error. It is almost every where disreputable to treat slaves with severity; and though there are indeed exceptions, yet in most cases in the South, even tyranny itself could not long withstand the reproaches of public opinion. A STILL GREATER AND MORE DANGEROUS EVIL, IS THE VERY REVERSE. It is indulgence; not only in such things as are proper and innocent, but in indolent habits and vicious propensities.'

– [From an address prepared for the use of those who advocate the cause of the African Education Society at Washington – a Society which educates none but those who consent to remove to Liberia.]

'How should a benevolent Virginian, in view of the fact, that out of thirty-seven thousand free people of color in his State, only two hundred were proprietors of land, how should he be in favor of general emancipation? But, show him, that if he will emancipate his slaves, there is a way in which he can without doubt improve their condition, while he rids himself of a grievous burden, and he will promptly obey the demands of justice – he will then feel that his generous wishes can with certainty be fulfilled. While he knows that scarcely any thing is done to meliorate the condition of those now free, and reflects on the many obstacles in the way of doing it in this land, he feels bound by a regard to what he owes himself – his children – his country, and even his slaves themselves, not to emancipate them. For he is sure, that, by emancipation, he will only add to the wretchedness of the one, and at the same time put at imminent hazard the dearest interests of the other. Thus he is forced to refrain from manumission, and not only so, but against all his benevolent inclinations, he is forced to co-operate with his fellow-citizens in sustaining the present system of slavery. He would most cheerfully follow the impulse of his noblest feelings – he would remove the curse which the short-sighted policy of his fathers entailed upon him; but he cannot disregard the first law of nature; especially not, when, were he to do it, he would render the curse still more calamitous in its consequences.' – [An advocate of the Colonization Society in the Middletown (Connecticut) Gazette.]

'Slavery is indeed a curse; and bitter is the lot of him who is born with slaves on his hands. And now, instead of denouncing as inhuman and unmerciful monsters and tyrants, those who are thus unfortunate, I say, let the commiseration and pity of every good citizen and christian in the land be excited, and let fervent prayers be offered in their behalf, and that God would direct the whole American mind to the adoption of the most effectual measures for the accomplishment of the total abolition of slavery.' – [New-Haven Religious Intelligencer for July 16, 1831.]

'Special reference will also be had to the condition and wishes of the slave States. In most of them it is a prevailing sentiment, that it is not safe to furnish slaves with the means of instruction. Much as we lament the reasons for this sentiment, and the apparent necessity of keeping a single fellow creature in ignorance, we willingly leave to others the consideration and the remedy of this evil, in view of the overwhelming magnitude of the remaining objects before us.' – [Address of the Board of Managers of the African Education Society of the United States.]