“I have no desire to undervalue the blacks of Hayti. I have found many shrewd, worthy, and intelligent men among them; and the country, it is well known, has produced several black men of a high order of talent; but these have been exceptional cases, like the King Philips, Hendricks, Tecumsehs, and Red Jackets, of our North American Indians. As a race, they do not get on. The same may be said of every other original race. The blacks form no exception to the well-known law, that culture and advancement in man are the result of a combination of races.”
REMARKS.
I have no desire to retain, by the republishing of the above extracts, the appellation of “Defender of the Mulattoes;” but have inserted them here, that they may not be misunderstood. All I have to say is, that I believe it would be actually more proper, numerically speaking, to call at least the free persons of African descent in America, colored or mulattoes, rather than negroes. Yet, how often do we hear respectable men of all parties, talk of “Negro nationalities,” and regarding the two races as “two negative poles mutually repelling each other,” leaving no middle ground for the great mass of the colored people or mulattoes, whom, as some say, “God did not make.” Instead of such impiety, and in place of sending one-half of the colored people to establish black nationalities in Africa, leaving the other half to be absorbed by the whites, I think it is much more liberal to regard them as one people, the political destiny of whom is unknown, or at best but begun to be discerned. To divide the colored people at this late day by any such process, would seem to me like splitting a child in twain, in order to give one half to its mother and the other to its father. I go for a colored nationality, that shall divide the continent with the whites, and the two empires being known respectively as Anglo-American and Anglo-African.
In conclusion, I desire to return my thanks for the complimentary manner in which the preceding communications have been received; and I would fain hope they might be as favorably regarded now that they are presented in this present form.
How proudly will the colored race honor that day, when, abandoning a policy which teaches them to cling to the skirts of the white people for support, they shall set themselves zealously at work to create a position of their own—an empire which shall challenge the admiration of the world, rivalling the glory of their historic ancestors, whose undying fame was chronicled by the everlasting pyramids at the dawn of civilization upon mankind.
“Hope of the world! the rising race
May heaven with fostering love embrace;
And, turning to a whiter page,
Commence with them a better age;
An age of light and joy, which we,
Alas! in prospect only see.”
OPINIONS OF DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN AND PHILANTHROPISTS.
“My proposition is simply to provide for the peaceful emigration of all those free colored persons of African descent who may desire so to emigrate to some place in Central or South America.... I believe the time has ripened for the execution of the plan originated by Jefferson in his day, agreed in by Madison and Monroe and all the earlier and better statesmen of the Republic, both North and South.”—Speech of Senator Doolittle.
“Instead, therefore, of being an expense to the nation, the foundation of such a colony would be the grandest commercial enterprise of the age....