'Is it either safe or prudent to retain amongst us a large population, on whom we can place no reliance, but from the control which the laws exercise over it? Can this class be animated by any feelings of patriotism towards a country by which they feel themselves oppressed?'—[Ninth Annual Report.]
'Colonization, to be correct, must be beyond seas.—Emancipation, with the liberty to remain on this side of the Atlantic, IS BUT AN ACT OF DREAMY MADNESS!'—[Thirteenth Annual Report.]
'Has our country the resources demanded for the accomplishment of an object of such magnitude? The transportation of more than two millions of souls to a remote country is indeed an object of formidable aspect. It obviously cannot be accomplished at once. But that the number can be gradually diminished, till utterly extinguished, may be made to appear, it is believed, from a little arithmetical calculation....' 'It has been said that the entire shipping of the country, both public and private, would hardly be competent for an object of this magnitude. But careful calculation has proved, that one eighteenth of the mercantile shipping alone, entirely devoted to the enterprise, is competent to carry it into complete consummation. And why might not our brilliant and growing navy aid to some extent the humane and patriotic cause? If necessary, why might not the marine of other lands be chartered? Strange indeed it is if shipping enough could be found half a century ago to reduce hundreds of thousands of this race in a single year to a wretched vassalage, and in this age of augmented light, and wealth, and improvement in every art, enough cannot be found for the single benevolent object before us!'—[Rev. Baxter Dickinson's Sermon delivered in Springfield in 1829.]
'How much soever we may regret that so little is done for the intellectual and moral improvement of the free colored population, as the surest preventive against crime, still we must acknowledge it is in vain to attempt raising their character to a level with that of the other inhabitants. They must find an asylum beyond the influence of the white population, or the majority of them will ever be found unworthy of the boon of freedom. There must be that asylum for them, or we despair of ever being able to improve materially their condition, or to eradicate slavery from our soil, and thus prevent the awful catastrophe which threatens our republic. They must be furnished with facilities to leave this country and establish themselves in a community of their own.'—'I have alluded to the difficulties which are presented to the minds of benevolent and conscientious slaveholders, wishing to manumit their slaves. From what has been said, it is evident that unless some drain is opened to convey out of the country the emancipated, the laws which relate to emancipation, must continue in force with all their rigor. Without this drain, we can hope for no repeal, or relaxation of those laws where the slaves are very numerous. The mass of slaveholders can never let go their hold on their slaves, and suffer them, ignorant, vicious and treacherous, to roam at large. If no drain is opened, necessity will compel them, as their slaves increase, and consequently the danger, to add statute to statute in regard to their slaves, until it be found necessary to arm one part of the population to control the other. I may add, that as bitter an enemy as I am to slavery, I cannot greatly desire that these laws should be relaxed—that slavery should be abolished, unless its unfortunate and degraded subjects can be removed from the country. If this is not effected, whatever may be our views and wishes on this subject, I am confident that slaveholders will justify themselves in resorting to almost any measures to keep their slaves in entire subjection.'—[An advocate of the Society in the Middletown (Ct.) Gazette.]
'To talk of emancipating the slave population of these States without providing them with an asylum, is truly idle. The free blacks already scattered through the country, are a dangerously burthensome order of people. They cannot amalgamate with the population—the ordinances of nature are against it. They must, in the main, be a degraded order, hanging loosely upon society.'—[Idem.]
'The slaves are in their possession—they are entailed upon them by their ancestors. And can they set them free, and still suffer them to remain in the country? Would this be policy?—Would it be safe? NO. When they can be transported to the soil from whence they were derived—by the aid of the Colonization Society, by government, by individuals, or by any other means—then let them be emancipated, and not before.'—[Lowell (Mass.) Telegraph.]
'Avarice and iniquity have torn from that injured continent, within thirty years, no less than 1,500,000 slaves; and cannot humanity, religion, and justice, restore an equal number in the same time? If we desire to accomplish this work, it is plain that we can do it, and that too with a sum contemptible when compared with the magnitude of the evil.'—[Address of Gabriel P. Disosway.]
'We thank God that the ultimate accomplishment of the great scheme of colonization is now placed beyond a doubt, in Maryland; and that the day is not even distant when the whole of our colored population will have transferred themselves, by our assistance, from slavery or degradation here, to peace, and plenty, and power, and prosperity, and liberty, and independence, in a land which Providence originally gave them.'—[Baltimore Gazette.]
'It tends, and may powerfully tend, to rid us gradually and entirely, in the United States, of slaves and slavery: a great moral and political evil, of increasing virulence and extent, from which much mischief is now felt, and very great calamity in future is justly apprehended.'—[First Annual Report.]
'What can be done to mitigate or prevent the existing and apprehended evils, resulting from our black population? EMANCIPATION, WITHOUT REMOVAL FROM THE COUNTRY, IS OUT OF THE QUESTION.' * * 'As long as our present feelings and prejudices exist, the abolition of slavery cannot be accomplished without the removal of the blacks—THEY CANNOT BE EMANCIPATED AS A PEOPLE, AND REMAIN AMONG US.'—[Second Annual Report of the New-York State Col. Soc.]