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Untitled Article
flourishing and very promising colony at Liberia . And they are very right ; they have made great exertions , and the result is admirable ; let them not mar it by attempting to combine things incompatible . As far as their African objects are concerned , in
which alone we in this country can be expected to interest ourselves , three thousand men are a fair beginning ; and it may even be doubted , how far it is desiiable to go much further . But if they really contemplate the getting rid of all the negroes in America , exertions upon a very different scale await them , as will be evident when we consider that the above number is little
more than a tithe of the annual increase ( to say nothing of emancipation ) of the free blacks alone . There is no reason to believe that any number that are ever likely to emigrate voluntarily , will sensibly affect the number that remain behind ; it will only stimulate the principle of increase , so that the evil , if evil it must be , of a black population will continue as formidable as ever .
I have said that in the proceedings of the Society as far as they have hitherto gone , we see nothing but what calls for high praise ; but to represent even this as unmixed good , would , perhaps , be saying too much . The good to Africa is , and I hope will be , very great ; to America ( I mean to the American blacks * ) the immediate effect is a serious evil , against which it is not to be
wondered at that they exclaim and protest by every means in their power . Granting , what I think is so clear as hardly to admit of an argument , that the actual transportation of all the blacks is out of the question , what ought to be the policy of America ? Certainly , to adopt every measure that can be devised to raise the blacks in the estimation of their white neighbours ,
and to counteract the absurd and inhuman prejudices which now prevail . And let it not be objected that this is a hopeless and Quixotic attempt ; let it not be said that it is idle to investigate the causes of the present state of public feeling ; let the investigation be made with care , that it may become the basis of decisive steps to grapple with the mischievous delusion . The American
patriot need not look far for an instance to encourage him in such an undertaking ; he has before his eyes a specimen of the wonders that may be accomplished by association , by energetic appeal and remonstrance , by example , by enlightened and welldirected zeal , availing itself of all the powerful means which the pulpit and the press afford for acting upon the public mind . Let these be resorted to with equal vigour , and we do not despair of
witnessing , in the next tea years , as marked a change on the subject of negro degradation , as the last have exhibited on that of intemperance . That deeply-rooted national prejudices should be entirely done away , is more , perhaps , than can be expected ; this , at any rate , must be the work of time ; but still , every step towards this desirable consummation is so much gained ; and to this point , even though m all its extent it should be unattainable ,
Untitled Article
American Colonization Society . 157
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 157, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/13/
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