continent, will convert its hideous and lifeless deserts into a smiling scene of animation and verdure. A great moral oasis will take the place of diffusive barrenness, in tracts known only as the haunts of prowling animals, and

"Of savage men more murd'rous still than they."

It is such aims and purposes which animate the friends of Colonization to press forward, in despite of the accumulated impediments which oppose their advance. Unfounded prejudices are raised, which must, by generating a spirit adverse to the coloured man on the one hand, and arraying the North against the South on the other, bring about incalculable evils.* As the country should be guarded from the approach of an inimical army, so it should be warned against the insidious attempts of foreign stratagem to undermine its allegiance. What so plausible and insinuating as the deceitful guise of Christian benevolence? What so likely to summon to its aid the religious sensibilities of a foreign country, and the conscientious and unsuspecting of ours? When we find an official functionary of Sierra Leone publishing a report intended to affect the American Colony at Liberia; when we find Englishmen denouncing as absurd a project

* Mrs. Childs cautions us against the adoption of Colonization principles on the score of their unpopularity. The unfounded reports industriously circulated against the scheme, have excited much prejudice against it in the minds of many worthy persons belonging to our free black population. This, too, may be said, that preaching at the North against Southern slavery can be easily done, as it costs nothing but the writing and publication of the sermons. Colonization, on the other hand, requires constant pecuniary sacrifices to convey to, and maintain the objects of its care in Liberia. It is for this reason not so cheap a philanthropy as some others. As it requires money in its support, the Southern states may naturally believe, that Northern people would not engage in it without pure and disinterested motives, either of patriotism or benevolence. Touching the argument of James G. Birney, derived from the successive dissolution of several Colonization Societies in the South west, that the plan contains no permanent animating principle, I may refer to the Abolition Society of Maryland, which was dissolved in the year 1798, having existed only seven years. The Protection Society of that state, formed for similar purposes, by Elisha Tyson, some years after, met with a similar fate. The same may be said of most of the benevolent projects of the age.

which they themselves originated and still continue to patronise; when we find our glorious Constitution the object of absurd, but censorious and ruthless attack; when we find two British agents in the Eastern and Northern country railing at institutions over which their auditors have neither jurisdiction nor control; can we doubt of the existence of a well defined object, a settled and systematic design? It seems manifest, that the Anti-slavery Societies, from their principles, connexions and acts, are of foreign parentage-that their formation was dictated by English party politicians, with the view, by making a direct assault upon the constitutional union of the United States, to compass their objects at home.

It is not necessary to deduce the history of our intercourse from the earliest times, with the great people from whom we are descended, to perceive in the movements of one of her political parties, a constant distrust, an unvarying watchfulness of her offspring. But all nations now attest the rapid approximation of what has long been foreseen and anticipated, that this republic united, would rival and at length supplant England, in her maritime and manufacturing ascendency. No panting after superior greatness could outrun the certain but quick advances of her youthful and more vigorous competitor. That which she could not obtain by the direct agency of energetic exertion, she might realize by the indirection of diplomatic subtlety. If the glory of that rising country could be prevented by distraction of councils-division among its members-separation of its union,-all the bright hopes of its youthful promise, all the dread fears of its opening career, would, in a moment, be dissipated and dispelled. The cloven foot of this policy was discovered soon after the commencement of our government. It has been equallyperceptible in the controversies growing out of the tariff.*

* The English apprehended much detriment to their manufacturing interests from the passage of our tariff acts. We all remember the clamour of a party in England against them. One or two Englishman greatly contributed by their writings, to inflame the people of South Carolina against these laws, and thus prepared them for the admission of the famous nullification doctrines. It was one

But patriotic ardour has defeated it all. The delicate question of negro emancipation, not springing from temporary causes, nor likely to subside with temporary interests, held out its alluring but deceptive promises.

It would be well for reflecting Americans to examine the causes of that popular tumultuary eruption which led to the sudden formation of societies in dereliction of the ancient and recognised principles of gradual emancipation-principles announced in the Charters of our Abolition Societies, and in accordance with the uniform tenor of our abolition acts.*

of these writers who dared to calculate the value of the union to South Carolina. -It should not be omitted, however, that other manufacturing nations abroad are not less jealous of the progress of American industry. It is said, and there is sufficient reason to believe, that in the year 1832, when a Bill was before Congress "for promoting the growth and manufacture of Silk," which had been reported and strongly recommended by the Committee on Agriculture, and which appeared to have the assent of a majority of the House of Representatives, the minister of France openly declared himself opposed to the bill, and it is probable, considering the great interests then and now in suspense between the two nations, that his opposition did not a little contribute to its rejection, af ter it had passed in committee of the whole.

*The charter of "The Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery," &c. enacted into a law on the 8th of December, 1789, has these words for its first section: "Whereas a voluntary Society has for some time subsisted in this State, by the name and title of The Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage,' which has evidently co-operated with the views of the legisla ture, expressed in the act of the General Assembly of this Commonwealth, passed the first day of March, in the year of our Lord 1780, entitled 'An act for the GRADUAL abolition of slavery,' and a supplement thereto, passed the 29th day of March, in the year of our Lord 1788." It thus appears by the Charter of this Society-the fundamental law of the body corporate, without which it could not have a legal existence-that its views were confined to gradual abolition.-The Biennial Conventions of the various Abolition Societies in the Union have repeatedly sanctioned the principle of gradual emancipation. The Convention which met at Washington, Dec. 8, 1829, express their belief that abolition "can only be obtained by very gradual means," that laws fixing a future period for the freedom of slaves had met the approbation of former Conventions; that the idea of immediate freedom had encountered universal reprobation; and that "gradual abolition is the only mode which at present appears likely to receive the public sanction." See minutes of the 21st Biennial American Convention, pp. 27, 8, 9.—All of our abolition acts proceed upon the principle of gradual emancipation. Pennsylvania set the example in 1780. Connecticut followed in 1784. Rhode Island a little later the same year. New

It would be well for Americans to pause before they adopt, at the suggestion of foreigners, a philanthropy which incites to turbulent invective and acrimonious clamour, against an honest and well intended benevolence. They should examine

York in 1799, and New Jersey in 1804. These acts all adopt the principle of gradual and prospective abolition.-The other non-slave-holding states in which legal slavery has been adjudged to be incompatible with their Constitutions, have always had very few or no slaves. I allude to Maine, Massa chusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, in the latter of which states only, in the year 1790, there were slavee. In that year, Vermont had seventeen slaves. Slavery was prohibited in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, before these communities were admitted to the rank of states, by the celebrated compact of 1787, for the cession of the North Western Territory to the Federal Government. Whether the prohibition which, in accordance with the Compact and Ordinance of Congress, was afterwards introduced into the Constitution of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, has been expunged in either, I have not been able to ascertain; but certain it is, in Illinois, slaves are returned in 1810 and 1820, and according to the census of 1830, there exist 746 slaves in the state. Sufficient, however, has been said, to show that gradual emancipation has been the characteristic feature of all the legislation in this country. This sentiment is not affected by the judicial construction which has been put upon the Constitutions of several of the states in which there were few or no slaves whatever, especially as judges are governed by their own abstract notions of what the law is. In Pennsylvania, the Constitution contains a similar article to that which, in Massachusetts, had been judicially pronounced inconsistent with slavery, and yet the seven judges composing the then High Court of Errors and Appeals, solemnly determined, "that it was their unanimous opinion slavery was not inconsistent with any clause of the Constitution of Pennsylvania." With regard to the policy of the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery at the South, that is not the question in this place; but I may be pardoned for quoting the concurring sentiment of Anthony Benezet and Dr. Fothergill, upon this subject, as the latter contributed so largely to the passage of our abolition act. In a letter to Dr. Fothergill, under date of 4th month 28th, 1773, Benezet writes: "I am like-minded with thee, with respect to the danger and difficulty which would attend a sudden manumission of those negroes now in the southern colonies, as well to themselves as to the whites." Again :-The danger of immediate abolition in places where slaves constitute a large part of the population, as in the Southern country, is distinctly admitted by Jonathan Edwards, (an unwilling witness,) in an appendix to a sermon which he pronounced at New Haven, in 1791. He had contended in his sermon, upon general principles, for the necessity of immediate abolition; upon the doctrine being impugned as dangerous, he thus distinguishes between the Northern and Southern states. "As it respects the Northern, in which slaves are so few, there is not the least foundation to imagine, that they would combine or make insurrection against the government; or that they would attempt to murder their masters." "With regard to the Southern states, the case is different. The negroes in some parts of those

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the long list of Colonization advocates, and see whether the first statesmen, jurists, and citizens of this country, are capable of the detestable hypocrisy of aiming, through its means, at the perpetuation of servitude. They should coolly investigate the immediate bearings and remote results of Colonization. They should dispassionately compare the declarations of its enemies with the certainty of its present performances, and the probabilities of its future influence.*

states are a great majority of the whole, and therefore the evils objected would, in case of a general manumission at once, be more likely to take place." Since 1773 and 1791, when Benezet and Edwards respectively wrote, the slaves at the south have greatly increased in number; and as a consequence, the "danger and difficulty," as expressed by one, and the "evils of throat-cutting, thieving, and plundering," as apprehended by the other, from a sudden or general manumission at once, are by no means diminished at the present day.

* The best reply that can be made to attacks upon the motives of colonizationists, is to display the names of the officers and friends of the Colonization Societies-men of the first virtue and talents in the country-whom the country delights to honour, and whom nearly every party holds in a respect approach, ing to veneration. I may name the venerable Bishop White, John Marshall, and James Madison, who is President, of the parent Society. No one will suspect these men of favouring a scheme, which has for its object, or can have for its effect, the perpetuation of negro bondage! If any one is too idle to investigate for himself what the inevitable fruits of Colonization principles, judiciously administered, are, let him consult the pages of bright names which the annual reports furnish, as officers of the parent and state societies, and make himself acquainted with the many benevolent private individuals, who are silent, but devoted friends of the cause, Let him read the former testimonies of the Abolition Societies themselves to the principles and effects of Colonization. The Convention of these Societies which met at Washington, in 1829, uses this language; "A great recommendation of the measure (Colonization) arises from the fact, that it is the only efficient one which is likely to be speedily sanctioned by the people; and is the only one by which voluntary emancipation, in most of the slave-holding States, can be effected." See Minutes, &c. p. 34.-Among the departed worthies, natives and foreigners, who gave to the principles upon which the Society proceed, their concurrence, I may record the late Thomas Jefferson, the celebrated Granville Sharp, the amiable Anthony Benezet, the truly philanthropic Elisha Tyson, the immortal William Wilberforce, and the lamented Hannah Kilham.

It is well known that Thomas Jefferson formed a plan in 1777, to colonize the free blacks, but the circumstances of the country prevented the execution of the project.

Granville Sharp, in 1787, colonized at Seirra Leone, 400 blacks, who were thrown upon their own resources in the streets of London, in consequence of the decision of the English judiciary, in the case of the negro Somerset.

Anthony Benezet proposes, in a letter addressed to Dr. Fothergill, in 1773, to