"And here it may be well to observe, that as long as negro slavery lasts, all colonies on the African coast, of whatever description, must tend to support it, because, in all commerce, the supply is more or less proportioned to the demand. The demand exists in negro slavery; the supply arises from the African slave-trade. And what greater convenience could the African slave-traders desire than shops well stored along the coast with the very articles which their trade demands. That the African slave-traders do get thus supplied at Sierra Leone and Liberia is matter of official evidence; and we know, from the nature of human things, that they will get so supplied, in defiance of all law or precaution, as long as the demand calls for the supply, and there are free shops stored with all they want at hand. The shopkeeper, however honest, would find it impossible always to distinguish between the African slave-trader or his agents and other dealers. And how many shopkeepers are there anywhere that would be over scrupulous in questioning a customer with a full purse?"
But we are told that the Colonization Society is to civilize and evangelize Africa.
"Each emigrant," says Henry Clay, the ablest advocate which the society has yet found, "is a missionary, carrying with him credentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and free institutions."
Beautiful and heart-cheering idea! But stay who are these emigrants, these missionaries?
The free people of color. "They, and they only," says the African Repository, the society's organ, "are qualified for colonizing Africa."
What are their qualifications? Let the society answer in its own words:— Free blacks are a greater nuisance than even slaves themselves."— (African Repository, vol. ii. p. 328.)
"A horde of miserable people—the objects of universal suspicion— subsisting by plunder."
"An anomalous race of beings the most debased upon earth."—(African Repository, vol. vii. p. 230.)
"Of all classes of our population the most vicious is that of the free colored."—(Tenth Annual Report of the Colonization Society.)
I might go on to quote still further from the "credentials" which the free people of color are to carry with them to Liberia. But I forbear.