And will He not make inquisition for blood? And what will it avail you to say, "Oh, we satisfied ourselves, and traversed land and sea, and spent thousands to satisfy others, that if we transported a few hundreds or thousands of our oppressed fellow-subjects to a distant country, yearly, with care, we might guiltlessly leave the remaining hundreds of thousands, or the millions, in slavery, and harmlessly indulge the invincible repugnance which we felt to a colored skin. We really thought it better, to exile our colored brethren from their native country, or to render their lives in it, intolerable by scorn, should they obstinately persist in remaining in it;—we really thought this better, than humbling ourselves before our brother and our God, and returning to both with repenting and undissembling love."
Is not such language similar to the swearer's prayer!!
Great Britain and the United States, the two most favored, and the two most guilty nations upon earth, both need rebuke. They ought to be brethren, mutually dear and honorable to each other, in all that is true and kind. But never, never, let them support one another in guilt.
People of Great Britain, it is your business—it is your duty,—to give to negro slavery no rest, but to put it down—not by letting the trunk alone, while you idly busy yourselves in lopping off, or in aiding others to lop off, a few of the straggling branches—but by laying the axe at once to its roots, and by putting your united nerve into the steel, till this great poison-tree of lust and blood, and of all abominable and heartless iniquity, fall before you; and law, and love, and God and man, shout victory over its ruin.
Hearken—thus saith the Lord, "Rob not the poor, because he is poor; neither oppress the afflicted in the gate. For the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them." Prov. xxii. 22, 23.
London, July 15, 1831. C. STUART.'[Y]
Sometimes the Society professes to be able to remove the whole colored population in less than thirty years! and the belief is prevalent that the project is feasible. Again it tells us—
'Admitting that the colonization scheme contemplates the ultimate abolition of slavery, yet that result could only be produced by the gradual and slow operation of CENTURIES.' * * 'How came we by this population? By the prevalence for a century of a guilty commerce. And will not the prevalence for a century of a restoring commerce, place them on their own shores? Yes, surely!' * * 'There are those, Sir, who ask—and could not a quarter century cease and determine the two great evils? You and I, my dear Sir, on whom the frost of time has fallen rather perceptibly, would say a century. And now, let me ask, could ever a century, in the whole course of human affairs, be better employed?'—[African Repository, vol. i. pp. 217, 347; vol. v. p. 366.]
'It is not the work of a day nor a year, it is not a work of one time, nor of two, nor of three, but it is one which will now commence, and may continue for ages.'—[A new and interesting View of Slavery. By Humanitas, a colonization advocate. Baltimore, 1820.]
Wild enthusiasts in the cause may respond—'The Society never expected to accomplish much single-handed: it is about to enlist the energies of the General Government—and doubtless Congress will appropriate several millions of dollars annually for the purchase and colonization of the slaves.'