The effects of this reiterated abuse are eminently mischievous. It serves to kindle the fires of persecution, to strengthen prejudice, to drive its victims to despair, and to increase the desire for their banishment. 'Tax your utmost powers of imagination,' says one of the colonization advocates, and you cannot conceive one motive to honorable effort, which can animate the bosom, or give impulse to the conduct of the free black in this country'! Is this language calculated to allay animosity, or beget confidence, or suppress contempt, or heal division, or excite sympathy? Far otherwise. Are there not thousands of living witnesses to prove the falsity of this assertion; thousands who adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour, and whose motives to honorable effort' are higher than heaven and vast as eternity; thousands, who, though their enemies spare no efforts to crush them in the dust, and in despite of mountains of difficulties, rise up with a giant's strength to re-spectability and usefulness? No motive to honorable effort'! Perish the calumny ! Again, they are stigmatized as the wild stirrers up of sedition and insurrection.' This charge is even more malignant than the other, and utterly groundless. Its propagation, however, tends directly to excite a persecution which may drive the accused to sedition, in self-defence. There is no evidence that any free man of color was enlisted in the late bloody struggle in Virginia, or in any manner accessary thereto. On the contrary, it was deprecated by our colored citizens generally, not only on account of its sanguinary acts, but because they knew it would operate to their own disadvantage by being placed to their account. The following honorable expression of feeling was made at a public meeting of the people of color in Wilmington, Delaware, about that period : The subscribers, having a knowledge of the alarm which prevails in the minds of some of the citizens of this place, on account of various reports which some mischievous person or persons have circulated, in regard to the colored population, beg leave to represent, on behalf of themselves and brethren, that having made inquiry into the subject, they have found said reports to be without the least foundation; and they owe it to themselves further to declare, that, so far from any disposition on the part of the colored people to disturb the peace and good order of the community, they are, on the contrary, fully aware that it consists not less with their interests than their duty to refrain from every act that would excite commotion or disorder, in which the colored people would have every thing to lose and nothing to gain. We have been treated by the citizens of Wilmington and its vicinity with kindness, for which we ought to be grateful, and it is our solemn purpose to pursue such a course of conduct as may merit a continuance of their favor and confidence. Should any among us be found so wicked and blinded as to enter into plots and contrivances, inimical to the present harmony, we thus solemnly pledge ourselves to our white friends and neighbors, that we will be among the first to sound the alarm, and unite in effecting their apprehension and suppression.' The free colored citizens of Baltimore, Maryland, also came out unitedly in the following pacific and truly exemplary spirit : 'Whereas, there has prevailed in this city, during the past week, a very unpleasant excitement, originating from suspicions and reports totally without foundation, and highly derogatory to our good sense; and whereas this excitement, though unnecessarily created, may, in its ultimate tendency, prove prejudicial to the interests of the free colored population of this State. Therefore, Resolved, That we challenge the most rigid investigation as to the truth of those evil reports, which have recently been so industriously propagated in this city by the credulous, and those who are totally unacquainted with the character of colored Baltimoreans. Resolved, That we are not so reckless of our true interest, so blind to utter helplessness-not to say so devoid of humanity, as to entertain the hostile designs, or to cherish the fiendish passions, which it seems have been, by the unthinking, so unjustly attributed to us. Resolved, That we have been too long in the land of bibles, and temples, and ministers, to look upon blood and carnage with complacency—that we have been too long in this enlightened metropolis, to think of the amelioration of our condition, in any other way than that sanctioned by the Gospel of Peace. Resolved, That we rely upon a peaceable and upright conduct, for a continuance of that favor and protection which we have hitherto enjoyed, and which, the liberal, the wise, and the good, are ever ready to accord.' How impolitic, then, as well as unjust, to brand this meek and magnanimous class as the wild stirrers up of sedition and insurrection'! This treatment, I repeat, is impolitic-nay, suicidal. To abuse, proscribe and exasperate them, to trample them under our feet, to goad them on the right hand and on the left, is not the way to secure their loyalty, but rather to make them revengeful, desperate and seditious. Our true policy is, to meliorate their condition, invigorate their hopes, instruct their ignorant minds, admit them to an equality of privileges with ourselves, nourish and patronise their genius, and, by giving them mechanical trades and mercantile advantages, open to them the avenue to competence and wealth. We shall thus make them contented and happy, and place them in a situation which will lead them still more heartily to deprecate any insurrectionary movements among our slave population. The following is the conciliatory and generous language of a man, who has been It will be well for denounced as a blood-hound and a monster. us if we profit by it. 'Americans! notwithstanding you have and do continue to treat us more cruel than any heathen nation ever did a people it had subjected to the same condition that you have us, let us reason. Had you not better take our body, while you have it in your power, and while we are yet ignorant and wretched, not knowing but little, give us education, and teach us the pure religion of our Lord and Master, which is calculated to make the lion lie down in peace with the lamb, and which millions of you have beaten us nearly to death for trying to obtain since we have been among you, and thus at once gain our affection while we are ignorant? Throw away your fears and prejudices then, and enlighten us and treat us like men, and we will like you more than we do now hate you. And tell us now no more about colonization; for America is as much our country as it is yours. Treat us like men, and there is no danger but we will all live in peace and happiness together; for we are not, like you, hard-hearted, unmerciful, and unforgiving. What a happy country this will be, if the whites will listen! What nation under heaven, will be able to do any thing with us, unless God gives us up into its hand? But, Americans, I declare to you, while you keep us and our children in bondage, and treat us like brutes, to make us support you and your families, we cannot be your friends. You do not look for it, do you? Treat us then like men, and we will be your friends. And there is not a doubt in my mind, but that the whole of the past will be sunk into oblivion, and we yet, under God, will become a united and happy people.** SECTION IX. THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY DENIES THE POSSIBILITY OF ELEVATING THE BLACKS IN THIS COUNTRY. THE detestation of feeling, the fire of moral indignation, and the agony of soul which I have felt kindling and swelling within me, in the progress of this review, under this section reach the acme of intensity. It is impossible for the mind to conceive, or the tongue to utter, or the pen to record, sentiments more derogatory to the character of a republican and christian people than the following: * * • In Introduced as this class has been, in a way which cannot be justified, injurious in its influence to the community, degraded in character and miserable in condition, forever excluded, by public sentiment, by law and by a physical distinction, from the most powerful motives to exertion,' &c. addition to all the causes which tend to pollute, to degrade and render them miserable, there are principles of repulsion between them and us, which can never *Walker's Appeal. be overcome.' * * * * * 'Their bodies are free, their minds enslaved. They can neither bless their brethren in servitude, nor rise from their own obscurity, nor add to the purity of our morals, nor to our wealth, nor to our political strength.' * 'Let us recollect that our fathers have placed them here; and that our prejudices, prejudices too deep to be eradicated while they remain among us, have produced the standard of their morals.' 'Nor will it be questioned that their establishment on the African coast will confer on them invaluable blessings which in this country they can never enjoy.' They must be hewers of wood and drawers of water. Do what they will, there is but this one prospect before them.'-[African Repository, vol. 1, pp. 34, 144, 162, 176, 226, 317.] * * * ** * Shut out from the privileges of citizens, separated from us by the insurmountable barrier of color, they can never amalgamate with us, but must remain for ever a distinct and inferior race, repugnant to our republican feelings, and dangerous to our republican institutions.' It is not that there are some, but that there are so many among us of a different physical, if not moral, constitution, who never can amalgamate with the great body of our population.'-[African Repository, vol. ii. pp. 188, 189, 338.] * * 'In consequence of his own inveterate habits, and the no less inveterate prejudices of the whites, it is a sadly demonstrated truth, that the negro cannot, in this country, become an enlightened and useful citizen. Driven to the lowest stratum of society, and enthralled there for melancholy ages, his mind becomes proportionably grovelling, and to gratify his animal desires is his most exalted aspiration.' The negro, while in this country, will be treated as an inferior being.' ** Our slavery is such, as that no device of our philanthropy for elevating the wretched subjects of its debasement to the ordinary privileges of men, can descry one cheering glimpse of hope that our object can ever be accomplished. The very commencing act of freedom to the slave, is to place him in a condition still worse, if possible, both for his moral habits, his outward provision, and for the community that embosoms him, than even that, deplorable as it was, from which he has been removed. He is now a freeman; but his complexion, his features, every peculiarity of his person, pronounce to him another doom,—that every wish he may conceive, every effort he can make, shall be little better than vain. Even to every talent and virtuous impulse which he may feel working in his bosom, obstacles stand in impracticable array; not from a defect of essential title to success, but from a positive external law, unreasoning and irreversible.' The elevation of a degraded class of beings to the privileges of freemen, which, though free, they can never enjoy, and to the prospects of a happy immortality.' They again most solemnly repeat to the free colored people of Virginia their belief, that in Africa alone can they enjoy that complete emancipation from a degrading inequality, which in a greater or less degree pervades the United States, if not in the laws, in the whole frame and structure of society, and which in its effects on their moral and social state is scarcely less degrading than slavery itself.'-Afri can Repository, vol. iii. pp. 25, 26, 66, 68, 345.] * * * * 6 But there is one large class among the inhabitants of this country-degraded and miserable-whom none of the efforts in which you are accustomed to engage, can materially benefit. Among the twelve millions who make up our census, two millions are Africans-separated from the possessors of the soil by birth, by the brand of indelible ignominy, by prejudices, mutual, deep, incurable, by an irreconcileable diversity of interests They are aliens and outcasts ;they are, as a body, degraded beneath the influence of nearly all the motives which prompt other men to enterprise, and almost below the sphere of virtuous affections. Whatever may be attempted for the general improvement of society, their wants are untouched.-Whatever may be effected for elevating the mass of the nation in the scale of happiness or of intellectual and moral character, their * degradation is the same-dark, and deep, and hopeless. Benevolence seems to overlook them, or struggles for their benefit in vain. Patriotism forgets them, or remembers them only with shame for what has been, and with dire forebodings, of what is yet to come.' * It is taken for granted that in present circumstances, any effort to produce a general and thorough amelioration in the character and condition of the free people of color must be to a great extent fruitless. In every part of the United States there is a broad and impassible line of demarcation between every man who has one drop of African blood in his veins and every other class in the community. 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. The African in this country belongs by birth to the very lowest station in society; and from that station he can never rise, BE HIS TALENTS, HIS ENTERPRISE, HIS VIRTUES WHAT THEY MAY. They constitute a class by themselves a class out of which no individual can be elevated, and below which, none can be depressed. And this is the difficulty, the invariable and insuperable difficulty in the way of every scheme for their benefit. Much can be done for them—much has been done; but still they are, and, in this country, ALWAYS MUST BE a depressed and abject race.'-[African Repository, vol. iv. pp. 117, 118, 119.] * * * 6 * * * The distinctive complexion by which it is marked, necessarily debars it from all familiar intercourse with the more favored society that surrounds it, and of course denies to it all hope of either social or political elevation, by means of individual merit, however great, or individual exertions, however unremitted.' * * 'It is deemed unnecessary to repeat what has already been said, of the character of the population in question, of its hopeless degradation, and its baneful influence, in the situation in which it is now placed.' The colored population of this country can never rise to respectability and happiness here.' 'It was at an early period seen and acknowledged, that neither the objects of benevolence nor the interests of the nation could be materially benefitted by any plan or measures that permitted them to remain within the United States.' * They leave a country in which though born and reared, they are strangers and aliens; where severe necessity places them in a class of degraded beings.' ** With us they have been degraded by slavery, and STILL FURTHER DEGRADED by the mockery of nominal freedom. We have endeavored, but endeavored in vain, to restore them either to selfrespect, or to the respect of others. It is not our fault that we have failed; it is not theirs. It has resulted from a cause over which neither they, nor we, can ever have control. Here, therefore, they must be for ever debased: more than this, they must be for ever useless; more even than this, they must be FOR EVER A NUISANCE, from which it were a blessing for society to be rid. And yet they, and they only, are qualified for colonizing Africa.' Whether bond or free, their presence will be for ever a calamity. Why then, in the name of God, should we hesitate to encourage their departure? The existence of this race among us; a race that can neither share our blessings nor incorporate in our Society, is already felt to be a curse.'-[African Repository, vol. v. pp. 51, 53, 179, 234, 238, 276, 278.] * * * * * Is our posterity doomed to endure for ever not only all the ills flowing from the state of slavery, but all which arise from incongruous elements of population, separated from each other by invincible prejudices, and by natural causes? Here invincible prejudices exclude them from the enjoyment of the society of the whites, and deny them all the advantages of freemen. The bar, the pulpit, and our legislative halls are shut to them by the irresistible force of public sentiment. No talents however great, no piety however pure and devoted, no patriotism however ardent, can secure their admission. They constantly hear the accents, and behold the triumphs, of a liberty which here they |