.0" ^^ ^77.*^ ^'^' ♦ ^F >#>■, <»^ 3.0 VS t.^^.r '0,1* A <:,. *'T7V'' ,0"^ ^ ' VV \P9 ji " • • « .V >^ " • * • A- <^ > ^^-n^ V O^ •..o» .0* 1* ^^ <\ <^ .. -^ '•"" »' ^^<^ •^.^'V ^ % &x /^'i^-yo .//^iX /^-}^'S REVIEW OP AN ANTI-ABOLITION SERMON, PREACHED AT JIUasant WnlUn. 3** Wi> BY REV. BENJAMIN F. WILE, Angnit) 183S. ^ ' BY JOHN H. WIGGINS. '*0 WHITESBORO : PRESS or THE ONEIDA INSTITUTE. 1838. TO THE READER. At the solicitation of friends whom I respect as such, and love and honor for their laudable and untiring efforts in behalf of the oppressed, I have undertake* this work. I make no other apology for its appearance, than that Humanity and Truth required something of the kind. I do not seek to be a ' pulpit dictator ; ' but I do seek to check the currency of error. It is an inherent privilege, as well as a christian duty, to rebuke wickedness whether found in high places or low. A minister occupying such a station as the author of the sermon in question, is expected to be right, especially on subjects of vital importance. By the manner in which this individual has treated the anti-slavery enterprize and its advocates, the pubhc mind, at least portions of it, has been abused and duped by naked assertion received as a matter of fact, without further investigation ; considering the source from which they came unquestionable. In this way abohtionists have been wronged and their motives impugned. To remove false as weU as anti-repubhcan impressions in relation to them, is, then, the first object of these pages. Many who read these remarks are acquainted with the circumstances which led to the delivery of this discourse. I have not time here to repeat them. AUusion- may be had to them during the remarlis which follow. In attempting what I have, I am aware I labor under great disadvantages — youth contending with age, experience, and influence. But it is for the sake of humanity and truth, and I trust much in their intrinsic merits. In doing it, I have not searched ' The dim-discovered traces of the mind.' It is first and fundamental principles, evident as the noon-day's sun, to which the attention is called. Reader, will you hear both sides ? The objections and the remarks belonging to them, are placed immediately pre- ceding the reply for the sake of convenience. Most of the introductory remarks are omitted, being of litde or no importance. It is necessary to state, in this connection, that most of that part of this review which refers to those passages in the New Testament brought forward in the ' ob- jections,' is from the pen of Pres. Green, of Oneida Institute. They are distin- guished by the usual mark. J. H. W. Oneida iNSTrrcTE, October 22, 1838. *^ SERMON. ^^ Declaration.* — / abbor slavery. I am opposed to U as a political, a moral and religious evil — as a great sin in the sigJU of God. OBJECTIONS TO THE COUBSE PURSUED BY THE ABOtlTIONISTS. FiBST. The undue prominence which is given to the subject of abolition, is, in my mind, an objection to the course of the abolition- ists. Every thing should have its appropriate place. The church should take a stand against all sin ; but in doing this, we should act, at least, with some discretion and judgment. The cause of temperance was presented ; the church has met it. She beheld the evil, and has succeeded in washing her hands nearly clean of its pollutions. But this cause never claimed any prominence over the doctrines and duties of religion. It appeared and was received as religion's handmaid and assistant, and not as religion's dictator and tyrant. — > It was under these circumstances that the cause of temperance pre- vailed both in the church and in the world. But the cause of abolition appears in a different light, and claims a higher seat in the church of Christ. Its place must be chief or hence, anarchy and confusion immediately ensue. It admits of sub- ordination to no other cause, scarcely to the cross itself. On the other hand, it is the ^sine qua non' in every thing — in religion, politics, and the world. The minister must consequently bring out the evils of slavery and the advantages of abolition, or he is not en- gaged in the appropriate work of the gospel ministry. It is predicted at once, that the church will never enjoy a revival of religion until the church and people take the whip of anti-slavery, and ride the hobbv of abolition. * * ****** :iatis. * The gentleman, before giving his objections, declared, with great emphf . the above words, his abhorrence of slavery, flow much he is opposed to the in»ti. tution, will be seen in the course of the following pages. It has been urged, that the conversion of the world can not proceed until this subject succeed. Hence, many have withdrawn from all other objects and devoted themselves to this. Are we to stop Mis- sions, Tracts, and Bibles, until all the South is abolitionized ? This is an unhallowed course.* * In concluding this point, it is asserted in a very vague and unqualified manner, that abohtionists have divided churches. This remark is so utterly, and I may say notoriously groundless, that it is deemed hardly worthy of reply. The gentleman probably had reference to the Free churches of the city of New York, which have been, it is true, for some time past, in a lamentable condition. That it is owing to pro-slavery movements more than abolition measures, appears evident to all unacquainted with the circumstances, from the following communication, written bv Mr. Davison, of New York, to Mr. Garrison, of Boston, relative to their proceedings. Dear Friend Garrison, — Thinking that the following extraordinary proceedings, which have recently occurred in this city, were of such a nature as to excite your feehngs, I hasten to communicate to you the circumstances. The Rev. Joel Parker, the great apologist for slavery, arrived here about three months since, from New Orleans, and was greeted by an invitation to lecture in the Tabernacle on a Sunday evening, wliich invitation he accepted, and made his ap- pearance in such a guise as would have reminded you of the adage of a wolf in sheep's clothing ! Tlris performance was highly applauded by the majority of his au- ditors, who were of course predisposed in his favor, and being principally members of the church, felt a strong desire to hear a little more perversion of the scripture from this apostate and pretended disciple, and so they made strenuous exertions to have him for their pastor ; but finding the abolitionists too strong for them, they sought to accomplish their object by other means ; and accordingly they (the colonization mem- bers) invited the 1st Free Chiu'ch to unite with them, which invitation they accepted, and the imion took place on the 1st of July, under the joint pastorship of the Rev. George DuflTield, a true abolitionist, and J. HelfTenstein, a zealous colonizationist. — They commenced their labors together according to their different views, but this union was of course of but short duration ; for a large number of the new members felt dissatisfied with the abohtion pastor, Mr. Duffield, and the other party experi- enced the same feehngs with respect to the colonization minister. Bickering and dissention were of course the only church business these devout colonization Chris- tians attended to, and the strife was ended, eventually, by the resignation of both the reverend gentlemen. Then the darling object of the humane colonizationists stood revealed — the cloven foot was visible, and the ' very cunning of the scene ' was exhibited by putting the Rev. Joel Parker in nomination for the vacant pastoral charge, which ended on Monday in the election and call of that benevolent gentleman by a small majority of the members. I understand that our friend Lewis Tappan, and the other true friends of liberty of both colors, will not remain amongst tliis nest of unclean birds. The third free Presbyterian church has, within the last month, been discontinued as a free church, and the pews have been offered for sale. Of course, a question arose whether the colored people would be allowed to purchase seats. The matter was decided by a vote next to unanimous, that the colored people should not be allowed to purchase seats, (there being but two dissenting voices.) So they are sen- tenced to sit in a corner up in the gallery. So ends the chapter of American preju- dice ; or perhaps these pro-slavery Christians in the plenitude of that charity which they boast and so liberally bestow on themselves will call it benevolence or philan- thropy. One is inclined to wonder by what machiavelian art all this train of events has been accomphshod for tlie furtherance of evil ; but the wonder will cease when you learn that Mr. Mor^e, of the N. Y. Observer, and Mr. Halo, of the .Tournal of Com. mcrce, have connected themselves with this congregation within the last three months* so that the whole influence of satanic policy and Jesuitical cunning was put in requi- sition in both churches by these gentlemen and kindred spirits. REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS. Admitting the first remark as a matter of course, and as identical with the axiom ' order is the first law of nature,' the force of the objection appears to be this : Abolitionists make the abolition of slavery an object of special effort. Now, no reasonable man will deny that the church should take a stand against all sin. That it has not and does not, has become almost a radical evil, over which the Christian is constrained to weep. The Christianity of the apostolic and primitive fathers has almost dwindled away, and a temporizing spirit has crept in, and, like a plague-spot on the soul, wasted its most vital energies. Sin stalks with its brazen head in our churches, and hides its hateful form in our pulpits. In many cases the church has become a great refuge of lies, and oppression has found its firmest stay in many of its members. But, in this case, there are many happy exceptions — a few who love the truth and walk in the ways of the Lord. Such are those who occupy the front ranks of 7nost of the benevolent operations of the day. These societies or combinations of Christians, concentrate the best energies of the church to destroy the strong-holds of satan, and form an excellent test of the genuineness of the Christian profession. They have had the same effects as the persecutions of the first and second centuries. They have sifted the church, brought out into vigorous action what was holy, and exposed what was false and hypocritical. In proof of this, mark for a moment the introduction and progress of Moral Reform. The church is nominally opposed to the violation of the seventh commandment, yet for years this sin, with all its ten thousand concomitant evils, has increased with fearful rapidity, until fair virtue wept at the desolation of her offspring — and nothing ef- fectual was done until a McDowall appeared as her devoted advocate, and laid down his life a sacrifice upon her altar. Yet McDowall found his bitterest foes among nominal Christians, and the church was found to be opposed to this sin, as it is to slavery, in the abstract. The same may be said of the Temperance Reform. Church mem- bers looked upon it as a wild, visionary and fanatical scheme. But the truth was, Bacchus had erected his altar in the holy sanctuary, and often had his most servile devotee in the pulpit ; and instances have been known where the minister has taken the bottle in the sacred desk, that he might be filled with the ' spirit.^ How, then, the question naturally arises, have these two evils, to a great extent, been stayed, and their threatening tide rolled back ? — I answer, by assuming that very position which the gentleman has termetl an ' inidue prominence ' — by taking the very course whicli abolitionists have adopted. In the Temperance Reform, societies were organized, tracts, papers, and books were published and scattered throughout the country, agents were employed, and some of the7n, even left the * appropriate work of the ministry.' Temperance was a prominent doctrine in the sermon, in the prayer meeting, and in the church. Such an array of oppositionj^met every where, under all forms, this hydra monster could not resist. After all, it was this • undue pz'ominence,' or what more classical scholars would call uUraism, that breathed out upon this man-destroyer the death-damps of cold water. In this cause, what was considered the duty of the minister ? To bring out the evils of intemperance and the advantages of temperance. Every church member was con- sidered as morally bound to aid in that benevolent enterprise. In this connection, it is no more than justice to state that in this respect the Rev. gentleman has literally performed his duty. I know of no man who has ' whipped ' the ' hobby ' of temperance with more zeal than himself. But in what respect does temperance differ from abolition ? Surely the difference is not so metaphysical as the gentleman, in another part of his discourse, would have us to infer. It consists only in the evils which it aims to subvert. The same means, as every candid reader will at once admit, must be adopted, viz. moral suasion, which is truth applied to the conscience, either orally or by means of publications. Intemperance is a small evil compared with that which crushes and annihilates the religious and political interests of nearly three millions of intelligences. The drunkard, in most cases, becomes such deliberately and volun- tarily ; the slave is made such by the strong arm of power which ranks him with chattels and things. The children of inebriates may escape the evils of their parents ; but the child of the slave is con- signed, from the first moment it looks on its mother, to a hopeless bondage, or perhaps made an article of merchandize before its birth. This is the evil which claims the attention of the American church, calling upon it to rescue the down-trodden and oppressed. Abolitionism, a word which many regard with pious horror, in its broadest sense, is nothing more than the right of the slave and the duty of the master, and, as a matter of course, the right of the slave tn bo heard, and the dutv of a minister and church to hear him. Tliis, the gentleman 1ms treated as something singular or strange, and almost insinuates that he would be moving out of his proper sphere, if he should plead for the dumb ! Yet there is no doctrine more plainly elucidated on every page of the Bible, than this— the duty of Christians to expose sin and bring out the advantages of reform. Whose duty is it, more emphatically than the minister's, thus to present the truth ? Slavery he acknowledges to be a ' polit- ical, moral and religious evil.' If so, the abolition of that evil must be a political, moral and religious good or ' advantage.'' Here, then, the conclusion is unavoidable, from his ov/n concession, that since he has not brought out the advantages of reform on this subject (slavery,) he is reckless to any and all of these points. What is the appropriate business of a minister, other than to sub- serve the interests of humanity ? To whom may the slave look for sympathy, if not to the accredited ambassadors of Christ ? To sym- pathize with miserable man, the incarnate God died on the cross ! — Are his followers ' v/iser than He ? ' Is it, then, a reasonable objection to the course of the abolitionists, if they urge or demand— what ?— Why, that ministers of Christ should not perjure themselves by violating a most solemn oath, ' that they will lift up their voice as a trumpet against the sins of the peo- ple—to preach the gospel to every creature.' Do they preach the gospel to every creature, when they exclude nearly one sixth of the population of the United States ? ' But abolitionists never have desired that the subject of emancipa- tion should absorb every thing else, or, to quote the words of the gen- tleman, become a 'siwe ^wa noM.' And this objection comes with a very ill grace from one who discards it altogether. The friends of the oppressed have only wished the minister and people to take the same stand against the sin of slavery that they do against theft, high- way robbery, adultery, murder and cruelty, of which American slavery is the sum total — that the minister should preach against it, and in behalf of the oppressed ; and their claims are no greater than those presented by the friends of Temperance or Moral Reform, which have been readily admitted. But if the magnitude of the evil which abo- litionists aim to destroy, adds any weight to their claims, their appeals are tenfold more urgent upon the Christian church to be up and doing. Abolition is a primary doctrine of the ' cross,' and if ministers are so discretionary (?) as never to speak about or admit il in their sermons, their religion is a mere sham — the outside — while they have not tasted tlic kernel. If 'anarchy and confusion ensue,' because aboUtion seeks its proper place, the disorganizers are on the side of its opposers. The Sadducces and priests styled Peter and Paul 'disturbers of the people.' So infidels say the Bible has been the cause of much bloodshed. But who shed the blood ? — were they Christians or infidels ? So with anti-abolitionists : after they have destroyed the church, and made banlirupt their own Christian char- acter, a hue-and-cry is raised against the abolitionists. Verily, the gentleman is conscientious ' beyond compare.' But it is asked, " Are we to stop Missions, Tracts, and Bibles, until all the Sotith is abolitionizcd 1 ' By no means. Yet it is certain the world can never be converted, and the millennium usher in its glories, until slavery is abolished. But what is it to abolitionize the South ? The gist of abolition is to mission-ize, tract-fze, and bible-ize it. — These are integrals of this wonder-working word ; and when we talk of abolitionizing the South, we mean to christianize it, and deliver it from down-right heathenism. But abolitionists d^ say that it is sheer and superlative inconsistency to send Missionaries, Tracts and Bibles to heathen in a distant country, when it is made penal to do the same to three millions of heathen in our own land. Is this not good logic — aye, a matter of fact ? ' A bitter fountain can not send out pure and sweet waters.' That religion of*the South which sanctions slavery, is nothing more than the direct despotism baptized into nominal Christianity — armed with the weapons of destruction. Who of the heathen would receive that gospel which sanctions the enslavement of its converts, if perchance they had a skin not colored like its advocates ? Granting the objection to have all the force possible, it would be better that the missionary wheels should revolve slowly, until this mighty evil is destroyed, than that they should be clogged hereafter, and groan under a back-water of moral impurity. Already has religion become as a stench in the nostrils of the unchristianized world and its advocates treated with scorn and contempt. Why is it ? Because we have sent among them gore-sprinkled bibles, blood-dipped tracts, and missionaries sustained with the proceeds of slaveholding. Because abolitionists wish to wipe off these stains, they are denounced as fanatics. But I am not willing to admit, even for a moment, that such is the case. Abolitionists arc the most zealous supporters of the bible, tract and missionary causes, and their every -day efforts are proof positive of this assertion. That their operations arc more extended, benevolent and universal none can den v. • 9 The slaves of the South are, by the confession of slavehoIdeM themselves, heathen ; and what authority do certain ministers adduce to justify them in debarring them of the light of the gospel ?* No such authority is found in the Bible, and consequently it must be of man, who so often * deviseth wickedly.' Not so with abolitionists ; they gather all under the same banner of the cross, and bid them look on Him who was crucified thereon, and live. Those who are to be co- workers with God in converting a revolted world and cheering up the waste of the desert with the song of the redeemed, must, from the necessity of the case, adopt abolition principles. It is an unchanging element of our religion to shed its blessings irrespective of persons. The principle of universal love to man, in whatever condition he may be found, is the elixir vifcB, or very vitality of Christianity, It is a generic principle, out of which branch all the other beauties of the gospel system. To say, then, that abolitionists claim too much prominence for their principles, when they ask for the same privileges and rights for the negro which are readily granted to the white man, and which Heaven has given to both, is disgraceful to a holy religion, and a libel on the character of Jehovah. To talk of using 'discretion and judgment' in returning these ori- ginal and inherent rights to their owners, is like temporizing with the sinner when hell with its terrors roars beneath his feet. To talk of abolition ' claiming prominence over the doctrines and duties of religion,' is the highth of absurdity and the superlative of nonsense. The exercise of the one is the exercise of the other— they are one and inseparable. In relation to the prediction * that a church will never enjoy a re. vival of religion until they admit the claims of the slave,' it would be well for tiie gentleman to consider facts on the subject. True, it would be somewhat preposterous to say that unconditional barrenness would curse a church, unless most of its members were ^technical abolitionists ; ' but, on the other hand, it is equally true, that in revi- vals, church members generally have more of the pure spirit of abo- * To prove this assertion, let me refer the reader to the following extract from the ' Report of the Synod of S^uth Carolina and Georgia,' published in the Charles, ton Observer, March' 22, 153-1:— ' From long continued and close observation, we believe that their [slave?'] moral and religious condition is such as that they may justly be considered heathen of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with leilhenivn in any part of the world.' ' Not one twentieth part attend divine worship on the Sabbath.' 2 10 litionism, and there is less respect of persons and more love for suf- fering humanity exhibited, than at any other time. And again, it is equally true, no church ever prospers without admitting abolition principles in the main. But if we would see the effects of pro- slavery influence, we must look to the South. Moral desolation broods like the spirit of night, over the land. The angel of destruction has passed over it and infused into the air the ingredients of moral poison. The voice of blood cries from the ground, and the Genius of Religion has taken its flight, and, like another Sodom, the sins of its people cry for vengeance. Churches are blighted, unholy sacrifices oflfered on Jehovah's altar, and the walls of his house arc bedaubed with un- tempered mortar. Within the very precincts of southern churches, are nearly three millions of wretched and degraded heathen — miser- able, forlorn outcasts. Tell me, if pure and undefiled religion has its Beat amid such moral ruin. When the rose blossoms in the desert, or the sower reaps his harvest from the icebergs, then may religion flourish, paralyzed by the poisonous breath of slavery. The present state of southern churches furnishes a humiliating spectacle to the world as well as a convincing one, that religion and slavery are in- compatible. The same effects are seen at the North in the same proportion as the influence of slavery has been felt. In many churches religion has become merely nominal and their light obscured, while in others it burns dimly and their influence is small. On the other hand, it is a fact, that most of those churches which have admitted the claims of the slave, have had precious and repeated revivals of religion ; — and religion no where exists in such purity as it does in some of our western anti-slavery churches. These things are not only reasonable, but matters of fact, which the statistics of these churches ably sustain. In view of these facts, it would be well, if the gentleman would study the welfare of his Zion, to 'remember them that are in bonds as bound with them.'* * Tl e gentleman, in conclndint]: Iiis point, ns the reader will perceive, asFerts ' that many have wiilKlrawn from all other objects and devoted iheniFelves to this.' Per- haps he had a case in his mind at the time, but I do not know and have not heard of any such instance. At all events no one will pretend to justify an individual in withdrawing altogether from one good cause, to subserve entirely t!ie interests of another. 11 SECOND OBJECTION.* I am opposed to modern abolitionists, because they are opposed to the cause of colonization. To give you the object and views of this society, you will permit me to give an extract from an English abolitionist, Rev. Dr. Reed, who visited our churches a few years ago.f I may not be prepared to subscribe to all the tenets and measures of the Colonization Society ; but I am a decided friend to the great de. sign it has in view. Its object is to remove all the colored people who desire to go, to their own country. They have already returned thousands, who are blessing with religion and civilization the benighted continent of Afiica. We stole the colored man from his father's country, and if he desire it, we will take him to the continent from which we brought him. We return him, blessed with religion and the arts of civilized life. This is restoring him four-fold for what we have taken. The Colonization Society regard him here as suffering under a wicked prejudice. He is thus debased, forsaken, and as it were alone. They take him from this land of strangers and prejudice, and return him to his native soil to exert a great influence on the dark spots of Africa. But abolitionists have taken a great dislike to this scheme ; they * This is not the next point in order as the gentleman delivered it, but is insert«d next for special reasons. t The followino; is the estract alluded to in the above. This is only a very small part of what Dr. Reed says in regard to the Colonization Society. He gives what is the 'ostensible object,' while he disapproves of it in most intelligible terms. ' The more ostensible means for their relief, which have been created by the forca of public opinion, are to be found in the Colonization and Anti-Slavery Societies. — The Colonization Society is the elder of the two, and originated in a pure motive of compassion for the slave. It proposes to establish a free colony on the coast of Af- rica, and by this means to confer a benefit on a country which has been wasted by our crimes, and to open a channel to the slaveholder to give freedom to his slaves. Its founders hoped that the movement thus made, while it brought the direct blessing of libertv to many, would indirectly, and without stimulating the prejudices of the planter, "familiarize the common mind with the inherent evils of slavery, and thus contribute to ultimate emancipation. For many years this was the best and the only remedy offered to public attention, and the benevolent, of course, took hold of it; and it has at present (1835) the concurrence of New England, and of the intelli. gent and influential in most places.' In another paragraph Mr. Reed remarks : — ' The Colonization Society may have been well as a harbinger of something bet- ter ; but it was never equal to the object of emancipation, and is now below th» spirit and demands of the day.' * * ' It has lost a great measure of public con. fidence.' * * ' As a re?ne% for slavery, it must be placed amongst the grossest of all delusions. In fifteen years it has transported less than three thousand per- sons to the African coast ; while the increase on their numbers, in the stime period, is about seven hundred thousand ! By all means let the Colonization Society exist, if it will, as a Missionary Society for the benefit of Africa ; but, in the name of com. nlon honesty and common sense, let it disabuse the publi# mind, by avowing that ii d^es oat pretead to be a remedy for slax^ery.' call it pro-slavery, because they will not denounce slavery as much and as long as abolitionists do, because they receive the slaveholders into their ranks, and because, in one word, colonization is to abolition what Mordecai was to Haman. All the conduct of modern aboli- tionists, say they, can not live, unless colonization dies ! Hence, they have raged with the madness of the wildest mania against it. They have dug its grave again and again, and have as often chanted its faneral dirge ; yet, strange to tell, it lives and increases in stature and importance every day, while, as to its influence, the other is actually on the wane— the funds of the former increasing, while those of the latter are actually decreasing, REPLY. The gentleman, at first, was emphatic in expressing his abhorrence of slavery, but now asserts himself a decided friend to the great de. Bign of the Colonization Society—the legitimate child of slavery, and firmest pillar of oppression. It is founded upon prejudice, and nourished with its poison. Its design is, not to abolish slavery, but, on the other hand, its great object is ♦ to fortify that institution.'' It offl>.s not tho least hope to the slave, but wars against all his interests. Many, no doubt, are ready to question the assertion, that colonization was designed to support slavery ; but to prove this we need only tha declarations of colonizationists themsslres. Hon. H. A. Wise, of Virginia, a stanch and able defender of the original design of the Colonization Society, states thus :— *I became the zealous and active friend and advocate of the sreat ongmal principles o? the design to secure and foutifv the institS of slavery itself by colonizing the free people of color, parSS those of the slaveholding stales, on the shores of Africa.' ^'''''^^^"' ^^ Indeed, it never so much as hints at the abolition of slavery in anv one of the articles of its Constitution. The second article, which States the object of the society, reads thus : « The object to which its attention is to bo exclusively directed is to promote and execute a plan for colonizing (with their consent U?; f.fo lltVJr"^"' '"'f'irr ""''' °"" ^^'^"^'•y' i" ^'-<=-' or sJc other ^It to Pf^Tfr '' K- *'" '^ •''" ™°^'' ^^P^^'^"^- -'^"^' the society shall act to effect his object, in co-operation with the general government and such of the states as may adopt regulations upon the subject!^ Here then, we have its object-to remove the free people of color, those free from slavery, into a strange land. To prove that it has not yet swerved from its first design, we adduce the following quotations from eminent colonizationists. And mark how studiedly they keep 13 aloof from the question of slavery. Speaking in reference to the Colonization Society, the Hon. Henry Clay, a slaveholder, and Pres- ident of the Society, says : — « It was not proposed to deliberate on, or consider at all, any ques. tion of emancipation, or that was connected with the abolition of slavery.' * The Society aims at the removal of the free persons of color. It interferes in no way whatever tcith the rights of property.^ — [Soeech of G. W. Curtis.] ' So far from being connected with the abolition of slavery, the measure proposed would prove one of the greatest securities to enable the master to keep m possession his own property.' — [John Randolph.] ' Our Society has nothing to do directly with the question of slave, ry.' — [Gerrit Smith, Esq.] * It interferes in no case with the right of property.'' — [African Re- pository, vol. i. p. a9.] 'Their [colonizationists'] operations have been confined to the single object — colonization. Tney do nothing directly to effect the manumission of slaves.' — [Mr. Key's Address.] Please pay particular attention to the two following and last quo- tations on this point : — 'The Am.erican Colonization Society has, at all times, solemnly disavowed any purpose of interference with the institutions or rights of our southern communities.' — [African Repository, vol. v. p. 387.] * It is not the object of this Soc'ety to libarate slaves or touch the rights of property.' — [Roport of Kentucky Col. S., A. R., page 81.] From the above — the testimony of colonizationists — it ray be plainly s32n that it is no ohJ3ct of tho Colonization Socie-y to ameli- orats tho CDnd.f.on of tho slave. Bat, on the other hand, it is one of tha greatest barriers to imn:;diate emancipation. It not only thus obsequiously pledges itself not to meddle with the ' domestic institu- tions of the South,' but in a base and cowardly manner promises not to make any efforts to destroy that wicked prejudice against the ne. gro, which grinds him in the dust. To prove this, read the following from one of its leading members, Mr. Archer, of Virginia : — « The object, if he understood it right, involved no intrusion on property, nor evi;x upon tkejudice.' It promises ' to consult the wishes and respect the prejudices of the South,' and promises tho utmost protection to slavery — a system full of blood, or what the im- mortal Wilberforce calls, ' the full measure of pure, unmixed, unso- phisticated wickedness.' How then can a minister of the gospel give his support to a societ/ 14 of this kind — one that not only stamps its seal of approbation upon an institution wicked as it is cruel, but pledges itself to frown upon, or, to use the exact words. ' to pass a censure upon abolition so- cieties in America.' Is it possible that tiie pulpit is thus false to its trust? Alas! 'Truth has fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter.' Tiie gentleman first daclaring his abo:nination of slavery — then railing against a society, the express obJ3ct of which is to abolish it — then a decided friend to a society which doss not even pretend to such an object. ' O ! consistency, thou art a jewel ! ' If th3 gentleman is a real and not a pretended friend to the cause of human rights, common honesty will force him to take a stand with the abolitionists. Daring the time Avhlch that society has been in operation, it has hardly brought one slaveholder to repentance, or removed one half even of the superannuated slaves. But fetters have been riveted on thousands — aye, millions. But, the gentleman may say, this is a ' tenet ' which he can not subscribe to. Yet this is the leading characteristic of that society, anl its grand design is, from the testimony of its own members, ' to for!;ify the institution of slavery.' Again — it is stated, ' their [colonizatlonists'] object is to remove all tlie colored people who desire to go ' &c. ; that is, a free man must consent either to a hori-id system of expatriation, or remain in his own land and be abused, insulted, and even enslaved. This is the beauty — or I might, in the inllated style of its advocates, call it ' the circle of philanthropy.' It is benevolence of a very romantic char. acter ; it is subserving the ' cause of liberty, of humanity, of religion,' with a vengeance ! Bat the Colonization Society is basely hypocritical, or, in the Ian gaage of Garrison, 'a creature without heart, without brains, eyeless, unnatural, hypocritical, relentless and unjust.' True, its ostensible purpose is ' to remove the free people of color with their consent ; ' but in fact it is very different. It is by force that these miserable beings are to be removed, and it is nothing but bare-faced hypocrisy to pretend to do it any other way. Colonizatlonists, if they have not created, do maintain a wicked, wide-spread and deep-rooted prejudice against the colored man ; and by it he has been persecuted, and his life blood sought after. It has united the slavcdcaler, recreant minis- ter and northern apologist together, and hunted him like a patridgc on the mountain, till, for the sake of peace, he would be compelled to go 15 to Africa. In nearly all the States, cruel laws are kept rigidly in force, depriving the black man of common privileges, and annihilating most of his home-bred rights. They are by law kept in ignorance and degradation, debarred from most of the schools, seminaries and colleges in the land. Even any attempt to instruct this unfortunate people, is met with the grossest insults and disrespect. Every onn will recollect what reckless hos- tility was vented against Miss Crandall, for desiring to set up a school for colored females in Canterbury ; also the breaking up of the school at Canaan, New Hampshire. But I do not mean to rest the ques'on on these circumstances merely. The testimony of colonizationists to prove that the phrase * with their consent ' is nothing but sounding words, is conclusive. Hear the report of a slaveholder : — ' Colonization in Africa has been proposed to the free colored people ; to forward which, a general system of persecution against them, iqiheld from the pulpit, has been legalized throughout the soutbern states.' Hon. Mr. Broadnax, of Virginia, too, honestly says r ' It is idle to talk about not resorting to force. If the free negroes are willing to go, they wdl go. If not willing, they must be compelled to go.' Again — mark with what familiarity and confidence the same gen- tleman speaks on the subject ; it is true colonization : — ' Who does not know that when a free negro, by crime or other- wise, has rendered himself obnoxious to a neighborhood, how easy it IS to visit him some night, take IIIM from niS BED AND FAMILY, AND APPLY TO HIM THE GENTLE ADMONITION OF A SEVERE FLAGEL- LATION, to induce him to go away.' Again — ' I have certainly heaid, that all the large cargoes of emigrants, lately transported from this country to Liberia, all of whom professed to be willing to go, were rendered so by tome such ministration.^ Says Mr. Breckinridge : — ' They sent out two ship-loads of vagabonds, {missionaries !) not fit to go to such a place ; an 1 they were coerced away, as truly as if it had been done with a cart- whip.' Thus much for the charity of the colonizationists. Their object is to drive, aye, to lash, if need be, the free colored American into Libe- ria, or some other barren or burnt district of the world. The thing is, to get them out of the way ; the welfare of the negro is not con- suited at all. Here they are nothing but ' chattels ; ' move them to jl/rica, makes these «<^zn^5' heralds of salvation. Banish them — • 16 like the wicked Jews th(y cry, ' away with them, away with them.* This is colonization, conceived in, and brought forth full-grown from perdition. But, says the gentleman, « they have already returned thousands, who are blessing with religion and civilization the benighted continent Of Africa.' He is certainly not a very attentive reader of colonization publica- tions. One of them states,* that 'cargoes of these emigrants have been thrown ashore, without shelter or efficient medical aid, to die by scores ! ' The legitimate residta of such foreign colonization has been disastrous in the extreme. A deadly hostility between the natives and the emigrants ha3 exicted, and has desolated again and aga'n the colony. The poor natives have been cheated and murdered by the colonists. The history of the King Joe Harris' war is familiar to most of us — a v.ar cliaracterized by the most savage cruelty and injustice. We well remember the horrib'e account of another war, given by Rev. Mr. Ashmun, which cannot be described better than in his own words. Speaking of the natives, he says : — * Eight hundred men were here placed shoulder to shoulder, in so compact a tbi-m that a child might easily walk upon their heads, from one end of the mass to the other, presentiiig in their rear a breadth of rank equal to twenty or thirty men, and all exposed to a gun of great power, raised on a platform, at only thirty to sixty yards distarcc. Every shot literally s-pent its force in a solid mass of living human flesh! ' Is there moral power in ' cannon balls, guns, gun-powder, and rum, spear-pointed knives and cutlasses,' that will christianize Af- rica ? What downright wholesale murder ! Yet its authors are those who, as the gentleman says, are blessing Africa with religion ! Oh ! how men will degrade that religion which is so exalted, heavenly, pure, and which 'worketh no ill.' Those whom Henry Clay teims ♦ nuisances,' Mr. Breckenridge 'vagabonds,' are to be evangelists to Africa, to reform the natives, who, from the testimony of colonization- ists themselves, are hardly as ' degraded ' and 'vicious' as the free colored people. Tiiose who are here ' lawless,^ ' revengeful.'' ' citt-ihroaV .\s\\, and, by some profound physiologists, the connecting link between the ourang-oulang and humanity, ' the most corrupt, depraved, and aban. doncd,' ♦ stirrers-up of sedition and insurrection,' are to be il/mz'on- aries ! They are to be made pious, humane, mild, devoted, industri- * Liberia Herald, August. 1837. 11 ouB, and dignified, by transportation, or some other salt-water process. What confusion worse confounded ! But who are to support 75,000 missionaries per year ? [This is the annual increase of the free color- ed and slave population.] Who are to furnish 8125,000,000— tho minimum, to colonize twr and a half millions of people in Africa ? — No small sura, indeed.' But let us exani'-ne colonization statements in reference to the op- eration of the gentleman. Almost the first intelligence from the colony is, that ' ignorance and an invincible prejudice had wrought up ' these pious missionaries, * to a blind and furious excitement of the worst passions,' and they ' were obliged to taste some of the bitter fruits of 'anarchy,' and barely < es- caped those tragedies of blood (!) which can find no parallel, but in the history of the civil murders and devastations of St. Domingo.* This is colonization — civilization ! But soon the intelligence comes, the missionaries have become apostates, and ' there must be a great revolution before it [the colony] can have a salutary influence on tho surrounding natives.' Next, we hear they must < have a work-house for confining licentious females, and other disorderly and lazy persons.* Next, ' the natives are disgusted with their immoralities.' Next, ' the colony is flooded with a great number of ignorant and abandoned characters.' Next, the missionaries have thrown aside their Bibles and tracts, ' and they are either used as waste paper, or made food for worms.' ' Soon, however, the curtain falls, and the fantastic scene i$) ended.' Mr. Pinney, the agent at Liberia, frankly states, that after some fifteen or twenty years, ' nothing has been done for the natives hitherto, by the colonists, except to educate a few who are in their families in the capacity of servants.' (Wonder if tlaey were not slaves ?) But the trickery of the scene, and the secrets of this modem inquisition house, are not all yet discovered. Many of the colonists have turned slaveholders, aa'd tradesme:m in human flesh. Chief Justice Jefcott, of Sierra Leone, stated in 1830, 'that the colony established for the express purpose of suppressing this vile traffick, was m.ade a mart for carrying it on ; ' also, ' that within the last ten years, twenty-tvvo thousand Africans had been located in the colony by Britain, and that now there are not to be found in the colony, above seventeen or eighteen thousand men.' Thus leaving between four and five thousand to be carried off by disease, * in a healthful and salubrious climate,^ or Iddnapped and exported by slave-dealing missionaries. It is reported, that in 1833, 'one of the schoolmastors 8 18 in Sierra Leone was tried for selling some of his scholars ! ' {Peda- gogue 'philanthropy, forsooth. 'The stupid blockheads can not learn teven in Sierra Leone.') The slave-trade has actually been carried on with great activity, and ' slave factoxies are established in the im- mediate vicinity.' This is the way they are christianizing Africa. Yet, in the very teeth of these facts, all of them stated by coloniza- tionists, the gentleman declares to his audience, iViat they are blessing Africa with religion and civilization. How skilled is the reverend author in the ' mysteries ' of the Colonization Society \ What an argument against the measures of the abolitionists ! Oh ! reason, methinks thou art truly tortured. This is logic with a witness, and would disgrace even a country school-boy. Sophistry and nonsense, which require no extra length of vision to see through. But hear another remark — an outrage on our common humanity — the expatriation of the colored American is a ^ four -fold gratuity.'' Reader, mark this avowal of hard-heartedness and tyranny, which would look out of countenance the southern slave-driver. A ^Jour- fold gratuity ' to enslave the father and his children, until both are superannuated and worn out with toil, and then banish them to Libe- ria. A ' gratuity ' to place the slave between two alternatives, either of which is the extreme of cruelty ; to give the colored man a choice, either to be transported to the sickly and pestilential climate of Africa, and suffer the horrors of starvation and the untold evils of that desert land, or remain in his own country, abused, insulted, and down-trodden. Is this a ^gratuity 7 ' Surely the gentleman has given us a gratuitous definition of this word. He is quite an adept in the science of hermeneutics. The colonizationists have no more right to ask the colored man to emigrate to Africa, than the colored people have to ask the whites to remove to England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France, or to any other country from which their ancestors emigrated. So that, if the colored population should gain the ascendency, the logic of coloniza- tionists would lead them at once to colonize the whites, and drive them out of the land. It assists the gentleman very little to bring forward the prejudice which exists against the colored man. That all must admit to be wicked ; and to encourage colonization, is to encourage that prejudice. But who are they who are so prejudiced against the negro ? AU most invariably they are found to be colonizationists ; and they have a dogma peculiarly their own — Hhey can not rise here J* Why ? Be- cause they [colonizationists] will not suffer them. All their measures- 19 amount in the end to this. AboUtionists treat the colored man as a brother, and labor to remove the obstacles which prevent him from * risin» ' — to have those laws repealed that are cruel and oppressive. But the dof^matical colonizationist immediately denounces them as * fanatics,' < cut-throats,' 'incendiaries,' and 'amalgamators,' and brands them with every other vile epithet which their mother tongue affords. Here then it amounts to selfishness ; — because they have a prejudice, every one must submit to its fastidiousness, and the free colored man must be banished to Liberia ! This is a kind of squeara- ishness which all can not humor. But why all this declamation about their ' native soil ? ' Does it require argument to prove, that America is the land of the American slave ? Can a man not lay claim to the air he first breathes — to the •earth he first treads ? On this principle, the phrase American citizen is entirely superfluous and unmeaning ; we are all foreigners and sojourners in a strange land. The dignity of citizenship is destroyed, and the gentleman himself must go seek the home of his fathers. But passing by ' Mordecai ' and ' Haman,' (may their spirits for- give the indignity,) whom the gentleman has so unceremoniously introduced to his audience, and the inference drawn from the conduct of the abolitionists, he says that colonization is 'increasing,' and abolition on the 'wane.' To discover how far this statement is true, let us examine the latest statistics of both. First, colonization is increasing. In point of influence, it is noto- rious that much of it is lost at the North, while at the South slave- holders are its foremost supporters. ]\Iany, of the first respectability, have left their ranks within a few years, among whom may be men- tioned Gerrit Smith, Esq., Dr. Cox, Arthur Tappan, Pres. Green, "W. L. Garrison, and many others, who are now the pillars of the anti-slavery cause. Citizens are losing all interest in the operations