system of slavery, except through the agency of bodies formed by themselves, and of measures in which they could personally co-operate. Legislative emancipation, as a phantom, thus eluded their grasp. Other important objects now claimed their attention. These were the destruction of the slave trade; the protection of the personal rights of the man of colour; and the exaltation of his moral and mental being. The department of elevating the negro, a duty of the most pleasing but delicate and arduous nature, must, if properly understood, lead to the most beneficial results. In this province, so peculiarly and justly their own, they have laboured with an ardour which no difficulties could cool, no opposition extinguish. I claim to be an humble advocate of African rights, and a determined enemy to African oppression. I would place them where their personal merits would entitle them to stand, maugre all the baneful prejudices which their distinctive condition has fomented. But do the laws of Pennsylvania deny to them any civil or political privilege? Do they invidiously point out and distinguish the freeman, because he wears a dark complexion,

"The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun?”

The freeman of colour is here constituted a free citizen, with all the incidents of absolute denization. But though in possession of all the freedom which laws can confer, and aided by a society who have taught him the use of letters and the obligations of moral and religious duty, he is yet very low in the scale of moral virtue. In elucidation of this, a reference to the statistics of our prisons and penitentiaries is all that is requisite. In the year 1827, when the white population of Pennsylvania amounted to one million two hundred thousand, and the black only to thirty thousand souls, the criminals confined at the penitentiary at Philadelphia, consisted of one hundred and twenty-one blacks, and one hundred and seventy-three whites. According to the census of 1830, the population of Pennsylvania was one million three hundred and forty

seven thousand six hundred and seventy-two persons, of which number there were thirty-seven thousand nine hundred and ninety free coloured inhabitants. The number of prisoners in the three penitentiaries of the state, at the end of that year, was five hundred and ninety-eight, of which two hundred and fifty-three were blacks. If the convictions among the white population were in the same proportion with the black, instead of there being three hundred and forty-five convicts in the different penitentiaries of the state, an immense and overwhelming multitude, would present of between eight and nine thousand! Nor is there in the magnitude of the crimes committed, a perceptible difference. Among those offences which are supposed to exhibit the highest degree of moral turpitude, such as larceny, robbery, burglary, and arson, the relative proportion of whites and blacks seems to be nearly equal. It has sometimes been argued, in explanation of so lamentable a disparity, that the conviction of a coloured man is procured with more facility than that of a white. All experience of our criminal courts rejects the imputation as unfounded. It affects too deeply the integrity and justice of our judicial tribunals, to be countenanced or discussed without adequate and particular proof. No; the fact cannot be reasoned against, explained, or impaired, and however reluctant we may feel to admit the moral inferiority of the black man in Pennsylvania, the conclusion is altogether irresistible.* Though the statistics of our prisons show the black citizen

*Heber tell us that the prisons of Moscow and other places in Russia, were chiefly filled with slaves, most of whom were in irons. The convictions of slaves in the slave-holding states of this union, show the most deplorable disproportion to those of the whites. Travellers find the prisons crowded with slaves.

For the purpose of contemplating the same men under more favourable circumstances, we must consider them, not in the free state of Pennsylvania, for as I have demonstrated in the text, mere legal freedom confers no exemption from crime, but in Liberia. Governor Mechlin says: "As to the morals of the colonists, (of Liberia) I consider them much better than those of the people of the United States; that is, you may take an equal number of the inhabitants from any section of the Union, and you will find more drunk

to be more depraved than the white, it must not be forgotten, that reasons can be assigned for it, without alleging the existence of ingenerate evil beyond the common lot of humanity. All philosophy proves, that man must be incited to virtue and to greatness, by the impulses of honourable ambition and the hopes of reward. We find men starting from the sinks of vice and the obscurity of indigence, and winning their way to wealth, honour and distinction, amid a thousand obstacles, and a thousand obstructions. Even the dignity of patrician rank, in England, intrenched as it is behind inveterate customs, and all the outposts of princely wealth, has been invaded by the daring encroachments of plebeian merit. But however elevated the natural spirit, it will

ards, more profane swearers and Sabbath-breakers, &c., than in Liberia. You rarely hear an oath, and as to riots and breaches of the peace, I recollect of but one instance, and that of a trifling nature, that has come under my notice since I assumed the government of the colony." Capt. Sherman says, "There is a greater proportion of moral and religious characters in Monrovia than in this city," (Philadelphia.) Capt. Abels, who spent thirteen days in the settlement, in the early part of 1832, thus attests the moral condition of the colony; "I saw no intemperance, nor did I hear a profane word uttered by any one. Being a minister of the Gospel, on Christmas-day I preached both in the Methodist and Baptist Church, to full and attentive congregations, of from three to four hundred persons in each. I know of no place where the Sabbath appears to be more respected than in Monrovia." The following testimony is borne by Simpson and Moore, who visited the colony together. "We noticed, particularly, the moral state of things, and during our visit, saw but one man who appeared to be intemperate, and but two who used any profane language. We think the settlers more moral, as a people, than the citizens of the United States." It is to be wished, that we had more recent information of the state of the criminal calendar. Capt. Sherman, who was in Liberia in 1830, furnishes the latest news upon this subject. It is, however, all that the most sanguine mind could anticipate. That gentleman says, "To the honour of the emigrants, be it mentioned, that but five of their number have been committed for stealing or misdemeanour, since 1827." During these three years, which produced but five convictions for stealing or misdemeanour,' the population of the emigrants averaged one thousand five hundred souls. Now, if the moral character of the colonists of Liberia, were not better than that of the free blacks of Pennsylvania in the year 1830, instead of five convictions, there would have been sextuple that amount; that is to say, if the convictions in Liberia were in the same proportion to the population, as among the free blacks of Pennsylvania, instead of five, there would have been thirty convictions in those three years!

remain tame or torpid without some stirring incentive, some powerful stimulus to action. When intellectual superiority or moral virtue is held in estimation, when its possessor is admired and venerated, we find numerous candidates for the honours attendant upon its acquisition. Why is all this? Because, in the absence of legal impediment, humble merit is sure of success, if it be seconded by the feelings and sympathies of the people. But can the aspirations of the negro in this country be awakened by a similar hope? He feels himself the descendant of a slave, and essentially distinguished from the mass around him. He sees the European foreigner, however differing from us in language and habits, possess every exterior resemblance, and give to his posterity the characteristics of the nation he has adopted. He sees his own offspring but the counterpart of himself, and they likely to transmit their inheritance to their successors from generation to generation. He sees that a repugnance arising from his ancestry and complexion, prevents him from enjoying those rights which the laws accord to him. He feels, that though benevolent solicitude for his caste has been alert for nearly a century, yet the mere privilege of voting-that franchise, without which, liberty is but an empty name, is denied him at the peril of his life. He feels that social communion with the white man, upon equal terms, is a franchise more difficult to purchase than that of suffrage to exercise. He feels that the very kindness which he experiences, is a kind of abstract, short-lived sympathy, at a distance, rather than prompted by the admission of undisputed equality, or the desire of nearer approach. Thus seeing and thus reasoning, is it surprising that his moral and intellectual nature has not yielded to longcontinued and sedulous care? Promising himself little from the pursuits of industry, or the practice of virtue, save the gratifications of animal existence, and the peaceful consciousness of acting well, he gives up both in despair.

In such a state of things it has been suggested, that it is the part of Christian philanthropy to break down the idle prejudices of lineage and colour by offering to

tercourse.

the coloured man the refinements of society, and to admit him to full participation in the endearments of social inLet those who inculcate these doctrines set before us the spectacle of their own bright example. Let them, if they can, thus violate all the sanctities of feeling, all the heart felt charities of private life; let them, if they can, upon Christian principles, make the invidious distinction between the negro and his own correspondent class among the whites. An exaltation of the negro above the head of his white compeer, would be unavoidably attended with a twofold impropriety and absurdity. The exclusion of the latter of equal deserts is indefensible, invidious and unjust, while the admission of the former, places him in a station for which he is unfit, and by which he is incapable of deriving advantage. A forced and unnatural union, repugnant alike to reason and to feeling, must ever be the parent of infelicity. But the projectors of amalgamation not having reached that point of moral sublimity which can overlook these various objections, it may be considered as a question broached, rather as a metaphysical abstraction, than with the hope, desire, or expectation of ever seeing it reduced to practice. As the negro, in this country, is from the causes adverted to, curtailed of his moral and mental proportions, it seems rather the dictate of enlightened benevolence to frame plans for his ulterior improvement and practical melioration, than to seek to render him odious by a premature, an indiscreet, and unnatural elevation.

Such being the results of long continued and strenuous efforts at abolition, and such the condition and prospects of the free coloured population, it seemed to be desirable, that a new essay should be made, offering more hopeful expectations of success. It was seen that little had been done at the North, and that the great work of Southern Abolition could not be advanced by companies in the free states. It was seen that statutory disability existed to prevent private enfranchisements, unless accompanied by removal from the slave holding territory. It was seen that the free negroes of the United States, stinted and restrained in regard to the finer