But even admitting that the efforts of this Society should never ultimately accomplish the object of its aim, the entire abolition of American slavery, there is one important result which it cannot fail to produce. Besides securing the blessings of freedom and self-government to some of those who had previously groaned under the chains of bitter servitude, it will afford a ready introduction of the blessings of civilization and the gospel to the benighted tribes of Africa. It is recorded in God’s sure word of prophecy, that “Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands to God,” while “the isles of the sea shall wait for his law.” In view of the numerous and simultaneous efforts of the Christian world to extend the blessings of the gospel to the ends of the earth, we may justly consider the exertions of the American Colonization Society as ultimately, though not directly, aiming at the same object; and we may with propriety regard the Institution as one important wheel in that vast system of moral machinery which, under the blessing of heaven, is destined to regenerate a fallen world.
In this view of the subject, I cannot but indulge in what some may call the flights of fancy, but what I fondly persuade myself is the reality of vision. O Africa, long oppressed and degraded Africa! Heaven has witnessed thy bitter sufferings, and the long black catalogue of thy wrongs is hid up in store against the day of retribution. But I see the Sun of righteousness arising upon thee, with healing in his wings. I see the shades of more than Egyptian darkness dispelled by his resplendent rays. I see thy wounds, which have been bleeding for ages, instantly staunched and healed. I see the ferocity of the tyger exchanged for the meekness of the lamb. I hear thy groves and plains resounding with the shouts of joy and gladness, and the still sweeter song of redeeming grace and love. I see “thy wildernesses and solitary places made glad, and thy desert rejoicing and blossoming as the rose. Thy parched ground has become a pool, and thy thirsty land springs of water. In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, there is grass with reeds and rushes. And a high way is there, and a way that is called the Way of Holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it: but it shall be for thee; the way-faring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Isaiah xxxv. 1-10. These blessed results I see effected by the instrumentality of America, the author of all thy wrongs. And though thy sweat and tears and blood have, for ages, been crying to heaven from the ground, for vengeance on her devoted head; yet now I hear thy voice, in the true spirit of gospel forgiveness, intreating pardon for thy guilty murderers. “O remember not against them their former iniquities.” I see a tide of pious joy and gratitude, flowing from thy streaming eyes, sufficient, if aught but a Saviour’s blood were sufficient, to wash away their crimson stains. O happy, happy land, once wretched and forlorn! Thy mother’s children shall no longer be angry with thee, because thou art black, because the sun hath looked upon thee—they shall no longer make thee keeper of their vineyards, while thine own vineyard lies waste. Thy complexion is indeed black, but comely; and thy soul has been washed in the fountain of redeeming grace, as white and as pure as the redeemed of any other clime; and thou canst now chaunt as high a note of praise to the God of thy salvation; and though here thou hast been excluded from the rights of freemen, and the society of white men, yet in heaven thou shalt mingle, without discrimination, among the blood-bought throng, and there occupy as high a throne, and wear as bright a crown.
In urging the claims of this subject, it is necessary that I should obviate an objection which is frequently made in this section of the country. It is said that “this is a matter in which we have no concern at all—that it belongs exclusively to the southern states.” If this plea were founded in fact, are we willing to admit, that the citizens of the northern states are so selfish, that they have no sympathy for the sufferings of humanity, if they are only out of sight? But I am bold to assert that this objection is utterly groundless; and that there is not a single native or naturalized citizen in the United States but is verily guilty in this matter. It is a well known fact, that in every original state in the union, excepting one, slavery has been sanctioned; and that it still exists, to a greater or less extent, in all the states and territories with the exception of five. Now it is useless for a man to plead not guilty to the charge of murder, because he has taken the life of only one individual, while others may have slain their thousands. It is the principle we are concerned with, and the principle of slavery has been as firmly sanctioned in most of the northern states, as in any part of the union; though our citizens have never found it for their interest to carry it as far. But for this single circumstance, I presume every farm in this region would now be cultivated by the labour, and watered by the sweat of negroes. With what an ill grace then can any, who have implicitly or explicitly sworn allegiance to the institutions of their respective states and the general government, especially those who have been, or still are the owners of human flesh and blood, hold up their heads and say, “We are pure from the blood of Africans?”
But, my hearers, I have not yet presented this subject in the light of its most appalling darkness; nor applied the sharpest point of its universal bearing. The union of these States was originally purchased at the price of the blood and groans of Africa; and all our citizens from the north and the south, from the east and the west, gave their consent to the bargain. One section of the constitution of the United States was written, like the laws of Draco, in lines of blood; the blood of Africans.[[3]] By it, all the horrours of the slave-trade, the whole root and stock and branch of which slavery is the bitter fruit, were firmly sanctioned for thirty tedious years. During this gloomy period, under the sanction of the charter of freemen, and of freemen too, who, in the days of their emancipation from the chains of despotism, appealed to heaven for the sincerity of their intentions, while they declared to the world “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;” under the sanction of such a charter, adopted by such men, and under such circumstances, thousands and tens of thousands of harmless Africans, who were born free as the air of heaven, or the streams of the fountain, were forcibly dragged from their native shores, bound with massy chains, crowded into the filthy hold of a floating dungeon, without power to rise or room to stand; and when multitudes had been swept off by wasting pestilence, and found a watery grave, the wretched remnant, emaciated with famine and worn down with disease, were sold under the hammer into perpetual bondage. Without the sanction of all these horrours, the union of these states would never have been effected. And in consenting to this measure, the northern states became voluntarily partakers with those of the south, in all the guilt of the barbarous slave-trade and all its horrid consequences.
[3]. Article I. Sec. 9.
O my country! what atonement canst thou make for such bloody crimes? What fountain, but that which flows from Calvary, can wash away thy crimson stains? In vain wouldst thou offer “many thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil. The blood of thy firstborn would not expiate thy transgression, nor the fruit of thy body, the sin of thy soul.” Mic. vi. 7. “Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God.” Jer. ii. 22. I beseech thee, do not aggravate thy guilt, and provoke anew the wrath of heaven, by justifying thy deeds or pleading innocent of the charge. “For thy sin is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond; it is graven on the table of thy heart, and” if not “upon the horns of thy altars,” it is inscribed in the archives of thy cabinet, and whilst thy children shall read the legacies of their fathers they shall remember and bear witness of thy crimes, to the latest posterity. Fly, O fly, in the first place, to the fountain of a Saviour’s bleeding veins, and there be washed from all thy pollution: and then, as a testimony of thy gratitude, that much, very much is forgiven thee, summon all thy energies to repair the injuries thou hast done. “Proclaim liberty to thy captives; say to the prisoners, go forth; and to them that are in darkness, show yourselves.” Isa. xlix. 9. Restore them to “the land of their fathers’ sepulchres,” and let them once more peacefully enjoy the inheritance of their ancestors. Wherever they may have been born, Africa is their home. Though transported to the most distant countries, and situated in the most temperate regions of the globe, and transmitted through a series of generations, they still retain in the constitution of their frames, and on the whole surface of their bodies, the title of heaven to those torrid climes. The God of nature has evidently determined, that they shall never be divested of their original inheritance. Though “the descendants of Cush can never change their skin,” yet the time will come when their souls shall be made white in the blood of the Lamb; and then, in their own land, which God allotted to their progenitor, they shall stretch forth their hands to God, and under their own vine and fig-tree enjoy the fruit of their labours, without any to molest or make them afraid.
There is one consideration more, by which I would urge the claims of this subject. If the people of the United States cannot be extensively aroused to undertake the redress of African wrongs, from motives of humanity, and a sense of duty, the apprehension of personal danger may with propriety be awakened in their minds. God deals with nations, in this world, on a different principle from what he deals with individuals.—The wicked man is often permitted to prosper in his sins, and to die without pain; because the righteous retributions of justice await him in the eternal world.—But wicked nations exist, in their national capacity, only in this life. Therefore, if national sins are ever visited with the indignation of heaven, it must be in the present world. Hence, we may draw the conclusion, that if American slavery is offensive to God, the judgments of heaven are now impending over this guilty nation. And in what form they will descend, we need not the spirit of prophecy to prognosticate. In several of the slave-holding states, the black population is already nearly equal to the white; and the ratio of increase is so much in their favour, that, in the course of a few years, they will be far the most numerous. During the period of ten years intervening between the last United States’ census and the preceding, the following was the ratio of increase in several states:
In Kentucky, the blacks increased 57 per cent, whites only 37 per cent.
Tennessee, the blacks increased 80 per cent, whites only 57 per cent.
Georgia, the blacks increased 40 per cent, whites only 30 per cent.