'All must concur in regarding the present condition of the free colored race in America as inconsistent with its future social and political advancement, and, where slavery exists at all, as calculated to aggravate its evils without any atoning good. Among those evils, the most obvious is the restraint imposed upon emancipation by the laws of so many of the slaveholding States: laws, deriving their recent origin from the obvious manifestation which the increase of the free colored population has furnished, of the inconvenience and danger of multiplying their number where slavery exists at all.' * * * 'By the success of this scheme, our country will be enriched. The free blacks constitute a material spoke in that wheel which is crushing down the wealth of our land. The moment we carry this plan into vigorous prosecution, we shall call many of our countrymen to a state of comparative wealth. The removal of the annual increase of our colored population, would give to our mariners a considerable scope of employment, whilst the trade of the Colony would be a source of profit.' * * 'It places the attainment of the grand object in view, that is, to withdraw from the United States annually, so many of the colored population, and provide them a comfortable home and all the advantages of civilization in Africa, as will make the number here remain stationary.' * * * 'Let us recur to the principle abovementioned—that every black family occupies the room of a white family. On this principle we are lost, if we suffer the colored population to multiply, unchecked, upon our hands; because they will increase faster than the whites, and will crowd them out of all the Southern country. But on the same principle we are saved, if by any means of colonization, we can retard the increase of the blacks, and gain ground on them in the South. That we can do with ease, if our people will unite in prosecuting the scheme. Every family taken from the blacks, will add also a family to the whites, and make an actual difference of two families in our favor. This exchange will leave fewer blacks to remove, while it will increase our ability to remove them. Self-interest and self-preservation furnish motives enough to excite our exertions.' * * 'By thus repressing the rapid increase of blacks, the white population would be enabled to reach and soon overtop them. The consequence would be security.'—[African Repository, vol. iv. pp. 53, 141, 271, 276, 344.]
'The existence of a class of men in the bosom of the community, who occupy a middle rank between the citizen and the slave—who encountering every positive evil incident to each condition, share none of the benefits peculiar to either, has been long clearly seen and deeply deplored by every man of observation. The master feels it in the unhappy influence which the free blacks have upon the slave population. The slave feels it in the restless, discontented spirit which his association with the free black engenders.' * * * * 'But, there is yet a more important and alarming view, in which this subject necessarily presents itself to the mind of every Virginian. A community of the character that has been described, with this additional peculiarity, that it differs from the class from which it has sprung, only in its exemption from the wholesome restraints of domestic authority, is found in the midst of a numerous and rapidly increasing slave population; and while its partial freedom, trammelled, as it is, by the necessary rigors of the law, is nevertheless sufficiently attractive, to be a source of uneasiness and dissatisfaction to those who have not attained to its questionable privileges, its exemption from the prompt and efficient inquisition appertaining to slavery, makes it an important instrument in the corruption and seduction of those, who yet remain the property of their masters.' * * * 'Who would not rejoice to see our country liberated from her black population? Who would not participate in any efforts to restore those children of misfortune to their native shores, and kindle the lights of science and civilization through Africa? Who that has reflection, does not tremble for the political and moral well-being of a country, that has within its bosom, a growing population, bound to its institutions by no common sympathies, and ready to fall in with any faction that may threaten its liberties?' * * * 'The existence of this race among us; a race that can neither share our blessings nor incorporate in our society, is already felt to be a curse; and though the only curse entailed on us, if left to take its course, it will become the greatest that could befal the nation.
'Shall we then cling to it, and by refusing the timely expedient now offered for deliverance, retain and foster the alien enemies, till they have multiplied into such greater numbers, and risen into such mightier consequence as will for ever bar the possibility of their departure, and by barring it, bar also the possibility of fulfilling our own high destiny?' * * 'The object of this Society is two-fold; for while it immediately and ostensibly directs its energies to the amelioration of the condition of the free people of color, it relieves our country from an unprofitable burden, and which, if much longer submitted to, may record upon our history the dreadful cries of vengeance that but a few years since were registered in characters of blood at St. Domingo.' * * 'It is the removal of the free blacks from among us, that is to save us, sooner or later, from those dreadful events foreboded by Mr Jefferson, or from the horrors of St. Domingo. The present number of this unfortunate, degraded, and anomalous class of inhabitants cannot be much short of half a million; and the number is fast increasing. They are emphatically a mildew upon our fields, a scourge to our backs, and a stain upon our escutcheon. To remove them is mercy to ourselves, and justice to them.'—[African Repository, vol. v. pp. 28, 51, 88, 278, 304, 348.]
'All admit the utility of the separation of the free people of color from the residue of the population of the United States, if it be practicable. It is desirable for them, for the slaves of the United States, and for the white race. The vices of this class do not spring from any inherent depravity in their natural constitution, but from their unfortunate situation. Social intercourse is a want which we are prompted to gratify by all the properties of our nature. And as they cannot obtain it in the better circles of society, nor always among themselves, they resort to slaves and to the most debased and worthless of the whites. Corruption, and all the train of petty offences, are the consequences. Proprietors of slaves in whose neighborhood any free colored family is situated, know how infectious and pernicious this intercourse is.' * * * 'Who, if this promiscuous residence of whites and blacks, of freemen and slaves, is for ever to continue, can imagine the servile wars, the carnage and the crimes which will be its probable consequences, without shuddering with horror?' * * 'It were madness to shut our eyes to these facts and conclusions. This rapid increase of the blacks is as certain as the progress of time. The fatal consequences of that increase, if it be not checked, are equally so. Something must be done. The American Colonization Society proposes a remedy—the removal to Africa of the blacks who are free, or shall hereafter become so, with their consent.' * * 'The colored population is considered by the people of Tennessee and Alabama in general, as an immense evil to the country—but the free part of it, by all, as the greatest of all evils.... They feel severely the effects of the deleterious influence which the free negroes exert upon the slaves—and they look, moreover, into futurity, and there they behold an appalling scene—in less than one hundred years, (a short time, we should hope, in the life of this republic,) 16,000,000 of blacks.' * * * * 'Since the recent revolution in the island of St. Domingo, which has placed it in the hands of the African race, it was thought by some that there an asylum might be found for this part of our population. But to that place there were also serious objections, which would prevent its adoption to any considerable extent. The nearness of that Island to our southern borders, and the evil consequences that might result from embodying the free persons of color in the vicinity of those parts of the United States, where slaves are so numerous, forbade the friends of humanity to provide a home for them in that Island.'—[African Repository, vol. vi. pp. 17, 23, 68, 77, 226.]
'The existence, within the very bosom of our country, of an anomalous race of beings, the most debased upon earth, who neither enjoy the blessings of freedom, nor are yet in the bonds of slavery, is a great national evil, which every friend of his country most deeply deplores. They constitute a large mass of human beings, who hang as a vile excrescence upon society—the objects of a low debasing envy to our slaves, and to ourselves of universal suspicion and distrust.' * * 'If this process were continued a second term of duplication, it would produce the extraordinary result of forty white men to one black in the country—a state of things in which we should not only cease to feel the burdens which now hang so heavily upon us, but actually regard the poor African as an object of curiosity, and not uneasiness.' * * 'Enough, under favorable circumstances, might be removed for a few successive years—if young females were encouraged to go—to keep the whole colored population in check.'—[African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 230, 232, 246.]
'The existence of such a population among us is a most manifest evil. And every year adds to its threatening aspect. They are more than a sixth of our population! Their ratio of increase exceeds that of the whites. They have all the lofty and immortal powers of man. And the time must arrive, when they will fearlessly claim the prerogatives of man. They may do it in the spirit of revenge. They may do it in the spirit of desperation. And the result of such a mustering of their energies—who can look at it even in distant prospect without horror? Almost as numerous are they now, as our whole population when this nation stood forth for freedom in a contest with the mightiest power of the civilized world. And if nothing is done to arrest their increase, we shall have in twenty years four millions of slaves; in forty years eight millions; in sixty years sixteen millions, and a million of free blacks;—seventeen millions of people; seven millions more than our present white population;—enough for a powerful empire! And how can they be governed? Who can foretel those scenes of carnage and terror which our own children may witness, unless a seasonable remedy be applied? The remedy is now within our reach. We can stop their increase; we can diminish their number.'—[Rev. Baxter Dickinson's Sermon delivered at Springfield, Mass. in 1829.]
'We have a numerous people, who, though they are among us, are not of us; who are aliens and outcasts in the land of their birth. A people whose condition is degraded and miserable; who, so far from adding to our national strength, are an element of weakness, and detract from the amount of human effort. A people, whose condition, while it excites our commiseration, must awaken our fears.' * * 'Those persons of color who have been emancipated, are only nominally free; and the whole race, so long as they remain among us, and whether they be slaves or free, must necessarily be kept in a condition full of wretchedness to them and full of danger to the whites. This view of the subject is rendered the more alarming by the rapid increase of this portion of our population.'—[Second Annual Report of the New-York State Colonization Society, pp. 4, 34.]
'We would ask, whence have the troubles, which have taken place among the slaves of Louisiana, originated? Trace the causes, and we will invariably find them to have proceeded from the suggestions and officious interferences of the free blacks. Their very existence in our limits, enjoying supposed independence, excites the envy and dissatisfaction of the slaves. The latter naturally inquire, why is it, that persons of the same color, are permitted to possess more privileges than they do?... We know the danger to which we are exposed from such a class of beings living in the very heart of our population, and increasing greatly every year.'—[An advocate of the Society in the New-Orleans Argus.]
'Among us the free negroes are multiplying rapidly; both conscience and religion, as well as propagation, increase them, and, unless instant and decisive steps are taken to prevent their increase, you will soon have 50,000 determined and vengeful enemies in the heart of your country, protected there by the constitution, forsooth, by which it seems we are forbidden to expel the free negroes, or to prevent farther importations of this deadly pest in the persons of slaves.'—[Louisville Focus.]
'Will not the people of the United States be induced to do something to remove their colored population? I refer to their condition, whether bond or free. They are wretched and dangerous, and should be removed. And the danger arises, not because we have thousands of slaves within our borders, but because there are nearly two millions of colored men, who are by necessity any thing rather than loyal citizens.'—[Address by Gabriel P. Disosway, Esq.]