Society, in their Fifteenth Annual Report, declare that an ordination of Providence' prevents the general improvement of the people of color in this land! How is our country dishonored, how are the requirements of the gospel contemned, by this ungodly plea! Having satisfied himself that the Creator is alone blameable for the past and present degradation of the free blacks, Dr. Nott draws the natural and unavoidable inference that here, therefore, they must be for ever debased, for ever useless, for ever a nuisance, for ever a calamity;' and then gravely declares, (mark the climax!) and yet THEY, AND THEY ONLY, are qualified for colonizing Africa'! Why, then,' he asks, in the name of God,' (the abrupt appeal, in this connection, seems almost profane,) should we hesitate to encourage their departure?'

Nature, we are constantly assured, has raised up impassable barriers between the races. But Southern slaveholders have clearly demonstrated, that an amalgamation with their slaves is not only possible, but a very easy matter, and eminently productive. It neither ends in abortion nor produces monsters. In truth, it is often so difficult in the slave States to distinguish between the fruits of this intercourse and the children of white parents, that witnesses are summoned at court to solve the problem! Talk of the barriers of Nature, when the land swarms with living refutations of the statement ! Happy indeed would it be for many a female slave, if such a barrier could exist during the period of her servitude, to protect her from the lust of her

master.

In France, England, Spain, and other countries, persons of color maintain as high a rank, and are treated as honorably, as any other class of the inhabitants, in despite of the 'impassable barriers of Nature.' Yet it is proclaimed to the world by the Colonization Society, that the American people can never be as republican in their feelings and practices as

Frenchmen, Spaniards or Englishmen! Nay, that religion itself cannot subdue their malignant prejudices, nor induce them to treat their dark-skinned brethren in accordance with their professions of republicanism! My countrymen! is it so? Are you willing thus to be held up as tyrants and hypocrites for ever? as less magnanimous and just than the populace of Europe? No-no! I cannot give you up as incorrigibly wicked, nor my country as sealed over to destruction. My confidence remains like the oak - like the Alps-unshaken, storm-proof. I am not discouraged; I am not distrustful. I still place an unwavering reliance upon the omnipotence of truth. I still believe that the demands of justice will be satisfied; that the voice of bleeding humanity will melt the most obdurate heart; and that the land will be redeemed and regenerated by an enlightened and energetic public opinion. As long as there remains among us a single copy of the Declaration of Independence, or of the New Testament, I will not despair of the social and political elevation of my black countrymen. Already a rallying-cry is heard from the East and the West, from the North and the South; towns and cities and states are in commotion; volunteers are trooping to the field; the spirit of freedom and the fiend of oppression are in mortal conflict, and all neutrality is at an end. Already the line of division is drawn; on one side are the friends of truth and liberty, with their banner floating high in the air, on which are inscribed, in letters of light, IMMEDIATE ABOLITION-NO COMPROMISE WITH OPPRESSORS 'EQUAL RIGHTS'-'No EXPATRIATION'' DUTY, AND NOT Consequences'-'LET JUSTICE BE DONE, THOUGH THE HEAVENS FALL!' On the opposite side stand the supporters and apologists of slavery, in mighty array, with a black flag, on which are seen, in bloody characters, AFRICAN COLONIZATION”. GRADUAL ABOLI TION-RIGHTS OF PROPERTY - NO EQUALITY'—' EXPUL

SION OF THE BLACKS' PROTECTION TO TYRANTS!' Who can doubt the issue of this controversy, or which side has the approbation of the Lord of hosts?

See how suddenly, by a touch of the Colonization wand, those who, in one breath, are denounced as ' nuisances,' can be transformed into enlightened citizens and excellent Christians to hide the iniquity of their expulsion!

In the month of June, 1830, I happened to peruse a number of the Southern Religious Telegraph, in which I found an essay, enforcing the duty of clergymen to take up collections in aid of the funds of the Colonization Society, on the then approaching Fourth of July. After an appropriate introductory paragraph, the writer says:

'But we have a plea like a peace-offering to man and to God. We answer poor blind Africa in her complaint-that we have her children, and that they have served on our plantations. And we tell her, look at their returning! We took them barbarous, though measurably free,-untaught-rude-without science-without the true religion-without philosophy-and strangers to the best civil governments. And now we return them to her bosom, with the mechanic arts, with science, with philosophy, with civilization, with republican feelings, and above all, with the true knowledge of the true God, and the way of salvation through the Redeemer.'

'The mechanic arts'! With whom did they serve their apprenticeship? With philosophy'! In what colleges were they taught? It is strange that we should be so anxious to get rid of these scientific men of color, these phi losophers, these republicans, these Christians, and that we should shun their company as if they were afflicted with the hydrophobia, or carried a deadly pestilence in their train! Certainly, they must have singular notions of the Christian religion which tolerates—or, rather, which is so perverted as to tolerate the oppression of God's rational creatures by its professors! They must feel a peculiar kind of brotherly

love for those good men, who banded together to remove them to Africa, because they were too proud to associate familiarly with men of a sable complexion! But the writer proceeds:

'We tell her, look at the little colony on her shores. We tell her, look to the consequences that must flow to all her borders from religion, and science, and knowledge, and civilization, and republican government! And then we ask her-is not one ship load of emigrants returning with these multiplied blessings, worth more to her than a million of her barbarous sons?'

So! every ship load of ignorant and helpless emigrants is to more than compensate Africa for every million of her children who have been kidnapped, buried in the ocean and on the land, tortured with savage cruelty, and held in perpetual servitude! Truly, this is a compendious method of balancing accounts. In the sight of God, of Africa, and of the world, we are consequently blameless, and rather praiseworthy, for our past transgressions. It is such sophistry as is contained in the foregoing extract, that kindles my indignation into a blaze. I abhor cant, I abhor hypocrisy; and if some of the advocates of the Colonization Society do not deal largely in both, I am unable to comprehend the meaning of those terms.

Instead of returning to those, whom they have so deeply injured, with repenting and undissembling love; instead of seeking to conciliate and remunerate the victims of their prejudice and oppression; instead of resolving to break the yoke of servitude, and let the oppressed go free; it seems to be the only anxiety and aim of the American people, to outwit the vengeance of Heaven, and strengthen the bul warks of tyranny, by expelling the free people of color, and effecting such a diminution of the number of slaves as shall give the white population a triumphant and irresistible supe

riority! 'Check the increase!' is their cry-let us retain in everlasting bondage as many as we can, safely. To do justly is not our intention; we only mean to remove the surplus of our present stock; we think we shall be able, by this prudent device, to oppress and rob with impunity. Our present wailing is not for our heinous crimes, but only because our avarice and cruelty have carried us beyond our ability to protect ourselves: we lament, not because we hold so large a number in fetters of iron, but because we cannot safely hold more!'

Ye crafty calculators! ye greedy and relentless tyrants! ye contemners of justice and mercy! ye pale-faced usurpers! my soul spurns you with unspeakable disgust. Know ye not that the reward of your hands shall be given you? 'Wo unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?' 'What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the face of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.' 'Behold, the hire of the laborers which have reaped down. your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ear of the Lord of Sabaoth.' Repent! repent! now, in sackcloth and ashes. Think not to succeed in your expul sive crusade; you cannot hide your motives from the Great Searcher of hearts; and if a sinful worm of the dust, like myself, is fired with indignation at your dastardly behavior and mean conspiracy to evade repentance and punishment, how must the anger of Him, whose holiness and justice are infinite, burn against you? Is it not a fearful thing to fall