If "the aristocracy of the skin" were laid aside, and the Coloured population of America were invested with the full rights of citizenship, and every civil prize, every useful employment, and every honourable station were thrown open to their exertions, there can be little doubt, as J. J. Gurney observes, in his Remarks on a Speech of Henry Clay's, "that the mixture of colours, in the same population, would soon be found perfectly harmless. Every man, white or black, would rest on his own responsibility; character, like other things, would find its natural level; light and truth would spread without obstruction; and the North American Union would afford, to an admiring world, a splendid and unsullied evidence of the truth of that mighty principle on which her constitution is founded; viz., that, 'All men are created EQUAL, and are endowed by the Creator with certain INALIENABLE rights,—Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.'"
W. A.
Leeds, 10th Mo., 1848.
CALUMNY REFUTED, ETC., ETC.
Amidst the numerous attempts to depreciate the character of the Negro, by exhibiting it as inferior and incapable of improvement, it is desirable to adduce evidence of an opposite nature, and to show that circumstances operate no less powerfully on the Sable inhabitants of a tropical climate, than on the natives of more northern latitudes, in which opportunities have been employed to remove the ignorance of uncivilised man, and to invest him with the glorious light of religion and science. How have they raised the brutal to the rational—the degraded to the noble—the idolatrous to the Christian character! What was once the condition of Druidical Britain, when, in the most barbarous manner, parents sacrificed their offspring to senseless deities? And to what can her present position amongst the nations be attributed, but to that expansion of knowledge, human and divine, with which she has been pre-eminently favoured?
The false philosophy which has imputed to the Negro a constitutional inferiority, is amply refuted by facts. There is not only abundant evidence, that the African is susceptible of all the finest feelings of our nature, but that his intellectual capacity, under circumstances more favourable than have generally fallen to his lot, will bear a comparison with that of any other portion of our species.
The capabilities of this calumniated race have been remarkably exhibited within a few years, on a portion of the Western coast of Africa colonised by Free Blacks from the United States, most of them formerly Slaves, including aborigines recaptured from slave-vessels as well as Negroes from the adjoining districts. From this interesting locality, recently constituted into the Free Republic of Liberia, overwhelming evidence might be adduced of the ability, sound judgment, and Christian character of its Sable inhabitants and legislators. Probably no government exists founded more nearly on Christian principles; and the community in general is perhaps as purely moral as any in the world.