Discussion on American Slavery

by George Thompson; Robert J. Breckinridge

Again, page 189, "To permit the blacks to remain amongst us after their emancipation, would be to aggravate, and not to cure the evil."

2. Extracted with approbation from the Public Ledger, Richmond, Indiana, Af. Repy., vol. 3. page 26. "We would say, liberate them only on condition of their going to Africa or Hayti."

3. Extracts from an address delivered at Springfield, before the Hamden Col. Society, July 4th, 1828. By Wm. B. O. Peabody, Esq. published by request of the Society. Af. Repy., vol. 4. page 226. "I am not complaining of the owners of Slaves; they cannot get rid of them; it would be as humane to throw them from the decks in the middle passage, as to set them free in our country." Upon which the following eulogy is pronounced, page 230. "We need hardly say that Mr. Peabody's address is an excellent one. May its spirit universally pervade and animate the minds of our countrymen.

4. Extracts from an Address to the Col. Socy. of Kentucky, at Frankfort, Dec. 17th., 1829, by the Hon. Henry Clay. Af. Repy., vol. 6, page 5. "If the question were submitted, whether there should be immediate or gradual emancipation of all the slaves in the United States, without their removal or colonization, painful as it is to express the opinion, I have no doubt it would be unwise to emancipate them. For I believe that the aggregate of the evils which would be engendered in Society, upon the supposition of such general emancipation, and of the liberated slaves remaining promiscuously among us, would be greater than all the evils of Slavery, great as they unquestionably are."

Again, page 12. "Is there no remedy, I again ask, for the evils of which I have sketched a faint and imperfect picture? Is our posterity doomed to endure forever, not only all the ills flowing from the state of Slavery, but all which arise from incongruous elements of population, separated from each other by invincible prejudices, and by natural causes? Whatever may be the character of the remedy proposed, we may confidently pronounce it inadequate, unless it provides efficaciously for the total and absolute separation, by an extensive space of water or of land, at least of the white portion of our population, from that which is free of the colored."

5. Extracts from the speech of Geo. Washington Park Curtis at the 14th Annual meeting of the Amer. Col. Soc., Af. Repy., vol. 6. page 371-2. "Some benevolent minds in the overflowings of their philanthropy, advocate amalgamation of the two classes, saying, let the colored classes be freed and remain among us as denizens of the empire; surely all classes of mankind are alike descended from the primitive parentage of Eden, then why not intermingle in one common society as friends and brothers. No, Sir; no. I hope to prove, at no very distant day, that a Southron can make sacrifices for the cause of Colonization beyond seas, but for a Home Department in those matters, I repeat no, Sir; no. What right, I demand, have the children of Africa to a homestead in the white man's country?

"If, as is most true, the crimes of the white man robbed Africa of her sons, let atonement be made by returning the descendants of the stolen to the clime of their ancestors, and then all the claims of redeeming justice will have been discharged. There let centuries of future rights, atone for centuries of past wrongs. Let the regenerated African rise to Empire; nay, let Genius flourish, and Philosophy shed its mild beams to enlighten and instruct the posterity of Ham, returning 'redeemed and disenthralled' from their long captivity in the new world. But, Sir, be all these benefits enjoyed by the African race under the shade of their native palms. Let the Atlantic billow heave its high and everlasting barrier between their country and ours. Let this fair land which the white man won by his chivalry, which he has adorned by the arts and elegancies of polished life, be kept sacred for his descendants, untarnished by the footprint of him who hath ever been a slave."

6. Mr. Henry Clay's speech, before the Society, January 1st, 1818—2d Annual Report, page 110. "Further, several of the slaveholding states had, and perhaps all of them would, prohibit entirely, emancipation, without some such outlet was created. A sense of their own safety required the painful prohibition. Experience proved that persons turned loose who were neither freemen nor slaves, constituted a great moral evil, threatening to contaminate all parts of society. Let the colony once be successfully planted, and legislative bodies who have been grieved at the necessity of passing those 'prohibitory laws,' which at a distance might appear to 'stain our codes,' will hasten to remove the impediments to the exercise of benevolence and humanity. They will annex the condition that the emancipated shall leave the country, and he has placed a false estimate upon liberty, who believes there are many who would refuse the boon, when coupled even with such a condition."

Here there was compulsion, both in principle and precept. In the laws of Maryland, and elsewhere, were found abundant evidences of compulsion in practice, and where there were no direct acts forcing them to depart, a public sentiment had been created, which, in its manifold operations, brought the colored man, crushed and hopeless, to the conclusion, that it would be better for him to say farewell to home and country, than remain a proverb and a nuisance amongst a prejudiced and persecuting people. No colored man could justly be said to go to Liberia, or elsewhere, with his free and unconstrained consent, until the laws were equal, the treatment kind, prejudice founded on complexion destroyed, and he presented himself a voluntary agent, and asked the means to transport him to a foreign shore. As one proof that compulsion had been openly and unblushingly advocated, he would quote the words of Mr. Broadnax in the Virginia House of Delegates:——

"It is idle to talk about not resorting to force; every body must look to the introduction of force of some kind or other—and it is in truth a question of expediency, of moral justice, of political good faith—whether we shall fairly delineate our whole system on the face of the bill, or leave the acquisition of extorted consent to other processes. The real question, the only question of magnitude to be settled, is the great preliminary question—Do you intend to send the free persons of color out of Virginia, or not?