FOOTNOTES:

'Of all the descriptions of our population,and of either portion of the African race, the free people of color are, by far, as a class, theMOST CORRUPT, DEPRAVED, AND ABANDONED. The laws, it is true, proclaim them free; but prejudices, more powerful than any laws, deny them the privileges of freemen. They occupy a middle station between the free white population and the slaves of the United States, and the tendency of their habits is to corrupt both.' * * * 'That the free colored population of our country is a great and constantly increasing evil must be readily acknowledged. Averse to labor, with no incentives to industry or motives to self-respect, they maintain a precarious existence by petty thefts and plunder, themselves, or by inciting our domestics, not free, to rob their owners to supply their wants.' * * * 'If there is in the whole world, a more wretched class of human beings than the free people of color in this country, I do not know where they are to be found. They have no home, no country, no kindred, no friends. They are lazy and indolent, because they have no motives to prompt them to be industrious. They are in general destitute of principle, because they have nothing to stimulate them to honorable and praise-worthy conduct. Let them be maltreated ever so much, the law gives them no redress unless some white person happens to be present, to be a witness in the case. If they acquire property, they hold it by the courtesy of every vagabond in the country; and sooner or later, are sure to have it filched from them.'—[Idem, vol. vi. pp. 12, 135, 228.]

'The existence, within the very bosom of our country, of an anomalous race of beings,THE MOST DEBASED UPON EARTH, who neither enjoy the blessings of freedom, nor are yet in the bonds of slavery, is a great national evil, which every friend of his country most deeply deplores.... Tax your utmost powers of imagination, and you cannot conceive one motive to honorable effort, which can animate the bosom, or give impulse to the conduct of a free black in this country. Let him toil from youth to age in the honorable pursuit of wisdom—let him store his mind with the most valuable researches of science and literature—and let him add to a highly gifted and cultivated intellect, a piety pure, undefiled, and "unspotted from the world"—it is all nothing: he would not be received into the very lowest walks of society. If we were constrained to admire so uncommon a being, our very admiration would mingle with disgust, because, in the physical organization of his frame, we meet an insurmountable barrier, even to an approach to social intercourse, and in the Egyptian color, which nature has stamped upon his features, a principle of repulsion so strong as to forbid the idea of a communion either of interest or of feeling, as utterly abhorrent. Whether these feelings are founded in reason or not, we will not now inquire—perhaps they are not. But education and habit, and prejudice have so firmly riveted them upon us, that they have become as strong as nature itself—and to expect their removal, or even their slightest modification, would be as idle and preposterous as to expect that we could reach forth our hands, and remove the mountains from their foundations into the vallies, which are beneath them.'—[African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 230, 331.]

'We have been charged with wishing only to remove our free blacks, that we may the more effectually rivet the chains of the slave. But the class we firstseek to remove, are neither freemen nor slaves;but between both,AND MORE MISERABLE THAN EITHER.' * * * 'Who is there, that does not know something of the condition of the blacks in the northern and middle States? They may be seen in our cities and larger towns, wandering like foreigners and outcasts, in the land which gave them birth. They may be seen in our penitentiaries, and jails, and poor-houses. They may be found inhabiting the abodes of poverty, and the haunts of vice. But if we look for them in the society of the honest and respectable—if we visit the schools in which it is our boast that the meanest citizen can enjoy the benefits of instruction—we might also add, if we visit the sanctuaries which are open for all to worship,[S]and to hear the word of God; we shall not find them there.' * * 'Leaving slavery and its subjects for the moment entirely out of view, there are in the United States 238,000 blacks denominated free, but whose freedom confers on them, we might say, no privilege but theprivilege of being more vicious and miserable than slaves can be.'—[Seventh Annual Report, pp. 12, 87, 99.]

'Placed midway between freedom and slavery, they know neither the incentives of the one, nor the restraints of the other; but are alike injurious by their conduct and example, to all other classes of society.'—[Eight Annual Report.]

'Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free colored. It is the inevitable result of their moral, political, and civil degradation. Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them, to the slaves and to the whites.'—[Tenth Annual Report.]

'The question arises, where shall these outcasts go? Ohio, and the free States of the West, which formerly invited them into their bosom, no longer offer them a welcome home. Disgusted with their laziness and vice, the inevitable concomitants of the anomalous relation in which they stand to society, the authorities of those States are seeking to get rid of what they find, too late, to be a curse to any settlement of whites—a thriftless race of vagabonds, whose footsteps are the sure precursors of indigence and crime. One of the most intelligent gentlemen of Ohio, (Mr Charles Hammond,) in a recent notice of this subject, says, "This dangerous class of population has increased considerably within a few years past, and the slaves States cannot too soon adopt efficient measures to get rid of it. Emigrations to Liberia ought to be provided for, and insisted upon, and the legislatures should pass laws to prevent emancipation, without adequate provision for thetransportationof the manumitted."'—[Lynchburg Virginian.]

'As it is now, they are for the most part in a debased and wretched condition. They have the vices of our community without its virtues. And what is worse, I speak of the majority, they have no desire to rise from their state of abject depression—no wish to gain a respectable elevation of character. Consequently it is difficult, if not impossible, to present them motives Which shall incite them to enter on a course of industry and virtue.' * * * 'Bound by no political ties to the community in which they dwell, and excluded for the most part from exercising the rights and privileges of freemen, on the ground of their alleged inferiority and worthlessness, they have no inducements to abandon lives of indolence, sensuality and recklessness, or to support the laws and institutions of the government placed over them. Nothing but the fear of suffering the penalty of violated law, can prevent them from preying on those among whom they live.'—[Middletown (Ct.) Gazette.]

'They have taken the free black that, as a class, dwells among us a living nuisance, nominally free, but bowed to the ground by public opinion—IN ONE PART OF THE COUNTRY DULL AS A BRUTISH BEAST, IN ANOTHER THE WILD STIRRER UP OF SEDITION AND INSURRECTION—they have shewn him to be capable of quiet and judicious self-government.— ... We cannot shut our eyes any longer upon the disadvantages of our black population, whether in slavery or freedom. It is a sword perpetually suspended over our heads by a single hair; it is the fountain of bitter waters that poisons all our enjoyments.'—[Speeches of J. R. Townsend, Esq. and W. W. Campbell, Esq. New-York city.]

'The fact was most glaring, without an inquiry, that the same shackles which bound them, fastened them also to the resources of the soil, and the interests of the community; and when these were broken, and the incentives of authority removed, the weight of ignorance, the want of better incentives, and the fatal and untried power of grateful but ruinous idleness, sunk them to a state, which, however elevated in theory, was in fact more degraded and more miserable than that of bondage. In addition to all this, pauperism, with the numerous evils of corrupt and corrupting indolence, threatened to impose its sluggish weight upon a groaning community. Hence, the progress of emancipation was, for the time, most righteously arrested.'—[Address of the Board of Managers of the African Education Society.]

'Who are the free people of color in the United States? In what circumstances does philanthropy find them! There are indeed individuals and families, who are sober, industrious, pious. But what are the remainder, the mass? Every one knows that their condition is deep and wretched degradation; but, only a few have ever formed any accurate conception of the reality. The fact is, that as a class they are branded. They have no home, no country, no such personal interest in the welfare of the community, as gives a certain degree of manliness to almost every white man.... Three hundred thousand freemen in this country, are freemen only in name, forming only little else than a mass of pauperism and crime.... Here the black man is paralysed and crushed by the constant sense of inferiority. He has no effectual incentives to manly enterprise. He stands in a degraded class of society; and out of that class he never dreams of rising.'—[Christian Spectator.]

'This is the true condition of the free colored population of our land. They are placed mid way between freedom and slavery; they feel neither the moral stimulants of the one, nor the restraints of the other, and are alike injurious to every other class of the community.'—[Southern Religious Telegraph.]

I repel these charges against the free people of color, as unmerited, wanton and untrue. It would be absurd to pretend,that, as a class, they maintain a high character: it would be equally foolish to deny, that intemperance, indolence and crime prevail among them to a mournful extent. But I do not hesitate to assert, from an intimate acquaintance with their condition, that they are more temperate and more industrious than that class of whites who are in as indigent circumstances, but who have certainly far greater incentives to labor and excel; that they are superior in their habits to the hosts of foreign emigrants who are crowding to our shores, and poisoning our moral atmosphere; and that their advancement in intelligence, in wealth, and in morality, considering the numberless and almost insurmountable difficulties under which they have labored, has been remarkable. I am informed that twenty-five or thirty years ago, the colored inhabitants of Philadelphia scarcely owned a dollar's worth of real estate, whereas they now own enough to amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This fact speaks volumes in praise of their industry and economy; for, be it remembered, they have had to accumulate this property in small sums, by shaving the beards, cleaning the boots and clothes, and being the servants of their white contemners, and in other menial employments. In Baltimore, Philadelphia, New-York, and other places, there are several colored persons whose individual property is worth from ten thousand to one hundred thousand dollars;[T]and in all those cities, there are primary and high schools for the education of the colored population—flourishing churches of various denominations—and numerous societies for mutual assistance and improvement, &c. In Philadelphia alone, I believe, there are nearly fifty coloredassociations for benevolent, literary, scientific and moral purposes.[U]Yet these are the people of whom it is said, 'they are acted upon by no motives to honorable exertions;' that they are 'scarcely reached in their debasement by the heavenly light' (almost a denial of the power of the Holy Ghost); that 'their freedom is licentiousness;' that 'they are a greater nuisance than even the slaves themselves;' that they are 'the most degraded, the most abandoned race on the earth;' that they are'worse circumstanced than the slave population;' that they have 'no privilege but the privilege of being more vicious and miserable than slaves can be;' and that they are 'a thriftless race of vagabonds, whose footsteps are the sure precursors of indigence and crime.' And these false and infamous charges are brought against them by a Society which professes to cherish for them the highest regard, and to be anxious to give them respectability in the eyes of the world!

The truth is, the traducers of the free blacks have no adequate conception of the amount of good sense, sterling piety, moral honesty, virtuous pride of character, and domestic enjoyment, which exists among this class. The spirited remarks of the colored citizens of New-York, in their address to the public, (videPart II. p. 16,) in reference to their calumniators, are exceedingly apposite: 'Their patrician principles prevent an intercourse with men in the middle walks of life, among whom a large portion of our people may be classed. We ask them to visit the dwellings of the respectable part of our people, and we are satisfied that they will discover more civilization and refinement, than will be found among the same number of white families of an equal standing.' A personal examination enables me to say that this challenge is neither presumptuous nor boastful. I confess, I have been most agreeably, nay, wonderfully disappointed, in my intercourse with them, which is daily elevating them in my estimation. Many of their number I proudly rank among my most familiar friends and correspondents.

With regard to the 'ragged set in Boston, crying out liberty!' every candid resident will testify that this is a libellous representation; that our free blacks are a quiet, orderly, well-dressed, and (as far as they can obtain employment) industrious class of citizens; and that their improvement is rapid and constant. Every curious observer who visits their houses of worship, will be surprised at the general neatness of attire and propriety of manners of the worshippers. 'A ragged set,' forsooth! The slander may be uttered in the city of Washington, at an anniversary of the American Colonization Society; but no man, who regards his character for veracity and intelligence,darepublish it in Boston.

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 conceiveone motiveto 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 respectability 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 art that would excite commotion or disorder, in which the colored people would haveevery 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.'

'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 theconciliatory and generous language of a man, who has been denounced as a blood-hound and a monster. It will be well for 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.'[V]

FOOTNOTES:[S]A cruel taunt. The wonder is not that colored persons do not more generally visit our sanctuaries, but that theyevershould attend. If they go, they are thrust into obscure, remote and unseemly pens or boxes, as if they were not embraced in the offers of redeeming love, and were indeed a part of the brute creation. It is an awful commentary upon the pride of human nature. I never can look up to these scandalous retreats for my colored brethren, without having my soul overwhelmed with emotions of shame, indignation and sorrow. No black man, however virtuous, respectable or pious he may be, can own or occupy a pew in a central part of any of our houses of worship. And yet it is reproachfully alleged—by a clergyman, too!—that 'if we visit the sanctuaries which areopen to all(!) to worship, and to hear the word of God, we shall not find them there'! No—I hope they will respect themselves and the religion of Jesus more, than to occupy the places alluded to.[T]Francis Devany, the colored sheriff of Liberia, is reputed by colonizationists to be worth property to the value of twenty-five thousand dollars; and they have trumpeted the fact all over the country, and so repeatedly as almost to lead one to imagine that he is the greatest and wealthiest man in all the world! James Forten, the reputable colored sail-maker of Philadelphia,—a gentleman of highly polished manners and superior intelligence,—with whom Devany worked as a journeyman, canbuy him outthree or four times over. Joseph Cassey, another estimable and intelligent man of color, or the widow of Bishop Allen, both of Philadelphia, can purchase him. I mention their names, not to extol them, but simply to show, that what begets fame in Liberia is unproductive here.[U]The following statement, recently published in the Philadelphia 'Friend and Advocate of Truth,' is very creditable to the colored inhabitants of that city:'Many erroneous opinions have prevailed, with regard to the true character and condition of the free colored people of Pennsylvania. They have been represented as an idle and worthless class, furnishing inmates for our poor-houses and penitentiaries. A few plain facts are sufficient to refute these gratuitous allegations. In the city and suburbs of Philadelphia, by the census of 1830, they constituted about eleven per cent., or one ninth of the whole population. From the account of the guardians of the poor, printed by order of the board, it appears that of the out-door poor receiving regular weekly supplies, in the first month, 1830, the time of the greatest need, the people of color were about one to twenty-three whites; or not quite four per cent., a disproportion of whites to colored, of more than two to one in favor of the latter. When it is considered that they perform the lowest offices in the community—that the avenues to what are esteemed the most honorable and profitable professions in society, are in a great measure, if not wholly closed against them, these facts are the more creditable to them. One cause of this disproportion, which we presume is but little known, but which is worthy of special notice, will be found in the numerous societies among themselves for mutual aid. These societies expended, in one year, about six thousand dollars for the relief of the sick and the indigent of their own color, from funds raised among themselves. Besides, the taxes paid by the colored people of Philadelphia, exceed in amount the sums expended out of the funds of the city for the relief of their poor.'It is also a fact that the proportion of whites in the alms-house in New-York is greater than that of the blacks. I am aware that other evidence, of a different kind, may be adduced in other places; but it is in the highest degree unfair to measure the whole body of blacks by the whole body of whites—for the privileges and advantages of the whites are as ten thousand to one: they monopolise almost every branch of business and every pursuit of life—they have all the means necessary to make men virtuous, intelligent, active, and opulent. Far different is the situation of the free blacks. How slender are their means! how mean and limited their occupations! how inferior their advantages! Almost every avenue to wealth, preferment and usefulness, is closed against them. How are they persecuted! how avoided in the streets! how excluded from the benefits of society! To point at them the finger of scorn, to taunt them for their inferiority or helplessness, is like putting out the eyes and clipping the wings of the eagle, and then reproaching him because he can neither see nor fly. To boast of our superior refinement, intelligence and virtue, is the extreme of vainglory, and adding insult to injury. Shame! shame!

[S]A cruel taunt. The wonder is not that colored persons do not more generally visit our sanctuaries, but that theyevershould attend. If they go, they are thrust into obscure, remote and unseemly pens or boxes, as if they were not embraced in the offers of redeeming love, and were indeed a part of the brute creation. It is an awful commentary upon the pride of human nature. I never can look up to these scandalous retreats for my colored brethren, without having my soul overwhelmed with emotions of shame, indignation and sorrow. No black man, however virtuous, respectable or pious he may be, can own or occupy a pew in a central part of any of our houses of worship. And yet it is reproachfully alleged—by a clergyman, too!—that 'if we visit the sanctuaries which areopen to all(!) to worship, and to hear the word of God, we shall not find them there'! No—I hope they will respect themselves and the religion of Jesus more, than to occupy the places alluded to.

[T]Francis Devany, the colored sheriff of Liberia, is reputed by colonizationists to be worth property to the value of twenty-five thousand dollars; and they have trumpeted the fact all over the country, and so repeatedly as almost to lead one to imagine that he is the greatest and wealthiest man in all the world! James Forten, the reputable colored sail-maker of Philadelphia,—a gentleman of highly polished manners and superior intelligence,—with whom Devany worked as a journeyman, canbuy him outthree or four times over. Joseph Cassey, another estimable and intelligent man of color, or the widow of Bishop Allen, both of Philadelphia, can purchase him. I mention their names, not to extol them, but simply to show, that what begets fame in Liberia is unproductive here.

[U]The following statement, recently published in the Philadelphia 'Friend and Advocate of Truth,' is very creditable to the colored inhabitants of that city:'Many erroneous opinions have prevailed, with regard to the true character and condition of the free colored people of Pennsylvania. They have been represented as an idle and worthless class, furnishing inmates for our poor-houses and penitentiaries. A few plain facts are sufficient to refute these gratuitous allegations. In the city and suburbs of Philadelphia, by the census of 1830, they constituted about eleven per cent., or one ninth of the whole population. From the account of the guardians of the poor, printed by order of the board, it appears that of the out-door poor receiving regular weekly supplies, in the first month, 1830, the time of the greatest need, the people of color were about one to twenty-three whites; or not quite four per cent., a disproportion of whites to colored, of more than two to one in favor of the latter. When it is considered that they perform the lowest offices in the community—that the avenues to what are esteemed the most honorable and profitable professions in society, are in a great measure, if not wholly closed against them, these facts are the more creditable to them. One cause of this disproportion, which we presume is but little known, but which is worthy of special notice, will be found in the numerous societies among themselves for mutual aid. These societies expended, in one year, about six thousand dollars for the relief of the sick and the indigent of their own color, from funds raised among themselves. Besides, the taxes paid by the colored people of Philadelphia, exceed in amount the sums expended out of the funds of the city for the relief of their poor.'It is also a fact that the proportion of whites in the alms-house in New-York is greater than that of the blacks. I am aware that other evidence, of a different kind, may be adduced in other places; but it is in the highest degree unfair to measure the whole body of blacks by the whole body of whites—for the privileges and advantages of the whites are as ten thousand to one: they monopolise almost every branch of business and every pursuit of life—they have all the means necessary to make men virtuous, intelligent, active, and opulent. Far different is the situation of the free blacks. How slender are their means! how mean and limited their occupations! how inferior their advantages! Almost every avenue to wealth, preferment and usefulness, is closed against them. How are they persecuted! how avoided in the streets! how excluded from the benefits of society! To point at them the finger of scorn, to taunt them for their inferiority or helplessness, is like putting out the eyes and clipping the wings of the eagle, and then reproaching him because he can neither see nor fly. To boast of our superior refinement, intelligence and virtue, is the extreme of vainglory, and adding insult to injury. Shame! shame!

[U]The following statement, recently published in the Philadelphia 'Friend and Advocate of Truth,' is very creditable to the colored inhabitants of that city:

'Many erroneous opinions have prevailed, with regard to the true character and condition of the free colored people of Pennsylvania. They have been represented as an idle and worthless class, furnishing inmates for our poor-houses and penitentiaries. A few plain facts are sufficient to refute these gratuitous allegations. In the city and suburbs of Philadelphia, by the census of 1830, they constituted about eleven per cent., or one ninth of the whole population. From the account of the guardians of the poor, printed by order of the board, it appears that of the out-door poor receiving regular weekly supplies, in the first month, 1830, the time of the greatest need, the people of color were about one to twenty-three whites; or not quite four per cent., a disproportion of whites to colored, of more than two to one in favor of the latter. When it is considered that they perform the lowest offices in the community—that the avenues to what are esteemed the most honorable and profitable professions in society, are in a great measure, if not wholly closed against them, these facts are the more creditable to them. One cause of this disproportion, which we presume is but little known, but which is worthy of special notice, will be found in the numerous societies among themselves for mutual aid. These societies expended, in one year, about six thousand dollars for the relief of the sick and the indigent of their own color, from funds raised among themselves. Besides, the taxes paid by the colored people of Philadelphia, exceed in amount the sums expended out of the funds of the city for the relief of their poor.'

It is also a fact that the proportion of whites in the alms-house in New-York is greater than that of the blacks. I am aware that other evidence, of a different kind, may be adduced in other places; but it is in the highest degree unfair to measure the whole body of blacks by the whole body of whites—for the privileges and advantages of the whites are as ten thousand to one: they monopolise almost every branch of business and every pursuit of life—they have all the means necessary to make men virtuous, intelligent, active, and opulent. Far different is the situation of the free blacks. How slender are their means! how mean and limited their occupations! how inferior their advantages! Almost every avenue to wealth, preferment and usefulness, is closed against them. How are they persecuted! how avoided in the streets! how excluded from the benefits of society! To point at them the finger of scorn, to taunt them for their inferiority or helplessness, is like putting out the eyes and clipping the wings of the eagle, and then reproaching him because he can neither see nor fly. To boast of our superior refinement, intelligence and virtue, is the extreme of vainglory, and adding insult to injury. Shame! shame!

Thedetestation 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:

'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. * * 'In addition to all the causes which tend to pollute, to degrade and render them miserable, there are principles ofrepulsionbetween them and us, which canneverbe 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, prejudicestoo deep to be eradicatedwhile 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 whichin this countrythey canneverenjoy.' * * 'Theymust behewers 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 theinsurmountablebarrier of color, they canneveramalgamate with us, but must remainfor evera 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, whonevercan 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 negrocannot, 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 caneverbe 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 belittle 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 froma positive external law, unreasoning and irreversible.' * * 'The elevation of a degraded class of beings to the privileges of freemen, which, though free, they canneverenjoy, and to the prospects of a happy immortality.' * * 'They again most solemnly repeat to the free colored people of Virginia their belief, thatin Africa alonecan 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.'—[African Repository, vol. iii. pp. 25, 26, 66, 68, 345.]

'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 anirreconcileable 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, theirdegradation is the same—dark, and deep, andhopeless. 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 takenfor grantedthat 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 andimpassibleline of demarcation between every man who hasone dropof African blood in his veins and every other class in the community. The habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society—prejudices which neitherrefinement, norargument, noreducation, norreligionitself can subdue—mark the people of color, whether bond or free, as the subjects of a degradationinevitableandincurable. The African in this country belongs by birth to the very lowest station in society; and from that stationhe can never rise,BE HIS TALENTS, HIS ENTERPRISE, HIS VIRTUES WHAT THEY MAY.... They constitute a class by themselves—a class out of whichno 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 BEa depressed and abject race.'—[African Repository, vol. iv. pp. 117, 118, 119.]

'The distinctive complexion by which it is marked,necessarilydebars it from all familiar intercourse with the more favored society that surrounds it, and of course denies to itall hopeof 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 itshopeless degradation, and its baneful influence, in the situation in which it is now placed.' * * * 'The colored population of this country canneverrise 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, andSTILL FURTHER DEGRADEDby the mockery of nominal freedom. We have endeavored, but endeavored in vain, to restore them either to self-respect, 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 befor ever debased: more than this, they must befor ever useless; more even than this, they must beFOR 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 befor 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 byinvincible prejudices, and by natural causes?' * * 'Hereinvincible prejudicesexclude 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 libertywhich here theycan never enjoy.' * * 'It is against this increase of colored persons, who take but a nominal freedom here, andcannot risefrom their degraded condition, that this Society attempts to provide.' * * 'They may be emancipated; but emancipationcannot elevate their conditionor augment their capacity for self-preservation.—Want and suffering will gradually diminish their numbers, and they will disappear, as the inferior has always disappeared, before the superior race.' * * 'Our great and good men purposed it primarily as a system of relief for two millions of fellow men in our own county—a population dangerous to ourselves andnecessarily degraded here.' * * 'The free blacks, by the moral necessity of their civil disabilities, are andmust for ever be a nuisance—equally, and more to the owner of slaves, than to other members of the community.'—[African Repository, vol. vi. pp. 12, 17, 82, 168, 295, 368.]

'Incorporated into our country as freemen, yet separated from it by odious and degrading distinctions, they feel themselves condemned to a hopeless and debasing inferiority. They know that their very complexion willfor everexclude them from the rank, the privileges, the honors, of freemen. No matter how great their industry, or how abundant their wealth—no matter what their attainments in literature, science or the arts—no matter how correct their deportment or what respect their characters may inspire, they can never,NO, NEVERbe raised to a footing of equality, not even to a familiar intercourse with the surrounding society.' * * 'To us it seems evident that the man of color may as soonchange his complexion, as rise above all sense of past inferiority and debasement in a community, from the social intercourse of which, he must expect to be in a great measure excluded, not only until prejudice shall have no existence therein, but until the freedom of man in regulating his social relations is proved to be abridged by some law of morality or the gospel.... Is it notwise, then, for the free people of color and their friends toadmit, what cannot reasonably be doubted, that the people of color must, in this country, remain for ages,probably for ever, a separate and inferior caste, weighed down by causes, powerful, universal, inevitable;which neither legislation nor christianity can remove?''Let the free black in this country toil from youth to age in the honorable pursuit of wisdom—let him store his mind with the most valuable researches of science and literature—and let him add to a highly gifted and cultivated intellect, a piety pure, undefiled, and "unspotted from the world"—it is all nothing: he would not be received into the very lowest walks of society. If we were constrained to admire so uncommon a being, our very admiration would mingle with disgust, because, in the physical organization of his frame, we meet an insurmountable barrier, even to an approach to social intercourse, and in the Egyptian color, which nature has stamped upon his features, a principle of repulsion so strong as to forbid the idea of a communion either of interest or of feeling, as utterly abhorrent. Whether these feelings are founded in reason or not, we will not now inquire—perhaps they are not. But education and habit and prejudice have so firmly riveted them upon us, that they have become as strong as nature itself—and to expect their removal, or even their slightest modification, would be as idle and preposterous as to expect that we could reach forth our hands, and remove the mountains from their foundations into the vallies, which are beneath them.'—[African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 100, 195, 196, 231.]

'Let the free black in this country toil from youth to age in the honorable pursuit of wisdom—let him store his mind with the most valuable researches of science and literature—and let him add to a highly gifted and cultivated intellect, a piety pure, undefiled, and "unspotted from the world"—it is all nothing: he would not be received into the very lowest walks of society. If we were constrained to admire so uncommon a being, our very admiration would mingle with disgust, because, in the physical organization of his frame, we meet an insurmountable barrier, even to an approach to social intercourse, and in the Egyptian color, which nature has stamped upon his features, a principle of repulsion so strong as to forbid the idea of a communion either of interest or of feeling, as utterly abhorrent. Whether these feelings are founded in reason or not, we will not now inquire—perhaps they are not. But education and habit and prejudice have so firmly riveted them upon us, that they have become as strong as nature itself—and to expect their removal, or even their slightest modification, would be as idle and preposterous as to expect that we could reach forth our hands, and remove the mountains from their foundations into the vallies, which are beneath them.'—[African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 100, 195, 196, 231.]

'And can we not find some spot on this large globe which will receive them kindly, and where they may escape those prejudices which, in this country, musteverkeep theminferioranddegradedmembers of society?'—[Third Annual Report.]

'A population which, even if it were not literally enslaved,must for ever remainin a state of degradation no better than bondage.' * * 'Here the thing is impossible; a slave cannot be really emancipated. You may call himfree, you may enact a statute book of laws to make him free, but you cannot bleach him into the enjoyment of freedom.' * * 'The Soodra is not farther separated from the Brahmin in regard to all his privileges, civil, intellectual, and moral, than the negro is from the white man by the prejudices which result from the difference made between them by the God of nature. A barrier more difficult to be surmounted than the institution of the caste, cuts off, and while the present state of society continuesmust alwayscut off, the negro from all that is valuable in citizenship.'—[Seventh Annual Report.]

'Let the arm of our government be stretched out for the defence of our African colony, and this objection will no longer exist. There,and there alone, the colored man can enjoy the motives for honorable exertion.'—[Ninth Annual Report.]

'In the distinctive and indelible marks of their color, and the prejudices of the people, aninsuperableobstacle has been placed to the execution of any plan for elevating their character, and placing them on a footing with their brethren of the same common family.'—[Tenth Annual Report.]

'Far from shuddering at the thought of leaving the comfortable fireside among us, for a distant and unknown shore yet covered by the wilderness, they have preferred real liberty there, to a mockery of freedom here, and have turned their eyes to Africa, as the only resting place and refuge of the colored man, in the deluge of oppression that surrounds him.'—[Eleventh Annual Report.]

'The race in question were known, as a class, to be destitute, depraved—the victims of all forms of social misery. The peculiarity of their fate was, that this was not their condition by accident or transiently, butinevitablyandimmutably, whilst they remained in their present place, by a law as infallible in its operation, as any of physical nature.' * * 'Their residence amongst us is attended by evil consequences to society—causesbeyond the control of the human willmust prevent theireverrising to equality with the whites.' * * 'The Managers consider it clear that causes exist, and are operating to prevent their improvement and elevation to any considerable extent as a class, in this country, which are fixed, not only beyond the control of the friends of humanity,BUT OF ANY HUMAN POWER.Christianity cannot do for them here, what it will do for them in Africa.This is not the fault of the colored man,nor of the white man, nor of Christianity; but an ordination of Providence, and no more to be changed than the laws of nature. Yet, were it otherwise, did no cause exist but prejudice, to prevent the elevation, in this country, of our free colored population, still, were this prejudice so strong (which is indeed the fact) as to forbid the hope of any great favorable change in their condition, what folly for them to reject blessings in another land, because it is prejudice which debars them from such blessings in this! But in truth no legislation, no humanity, no benevolence can make them insensible to their past condition, can unfetter their minds, can relieve them from the disadvantages resulting from inferior means and attainments, can abridge the right of freemen to regulate their social intercourse and relations, which will leave themfor ever a separate and depressed classin the community; in fine, nothing can in any way do much here to raise them from their miseries to respectability, honor and usefulness.'—[Fifteenth Annual Report.]

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