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SECTION III

THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY RECOGNISES SLAVES AS PROPERTY

The heresies of this combination are flagrant and numerous. A larger volume than this is needed to define and illustrate them all. Much important evidence, and many pertinent reflections, I am compelled to suppress.

My next allegation against it is, that it recognises slaves as property. This recognition is not merely technical, or strictly confined to a statutable interpretation. I presume the advocates of the Society will attempt to evade this point, by saying that it never meant to concede the moral right of the masters to possess human beings; but the evidence against them is full and explicit. The Society, if language mean any thing, does unequivocally acknowledge property in slaves to be as legitimate and sacred as any other property, of which to deprive the owners either by force or by legislation, without making restitution, would be unjust and tyrannical. Here is the proof:

'It interferes in no wise with the rights of property.' * * 'It is utterly opposed to any measures which might infringe upon the rights of property.' * * 'We hold their slaves as we hold their other property, SACRED.' – [African Repository, vol. i. pp. 39, 225, 283.]

'Does this Society wish to meddle with our slaves as our rightful property? I answer no, I think not.' * * 'The Society cannot be justly charged with aiming to disturb the rights of property or the peace of society.' * * 'It seeks to affect no man's property.' * * 'To found in Africa, an empire of christians and republicans; to reconduct the blacks to their native land, without disturbing the order of society, the laws of property, or the rights of individuals,' &c. – [African Repository, vol. ii. pp. 13, 58, 334, 375.]

'They are also convinced, that the Society have conducted their operations with so much prudence, as to give no cause of alarm to the holders of slaves, for the security of this property.' – [African Repository, volume iii. p. 341.]

'The rights of masters are to remain sacred in the eyes of the Society.' – [African Repository, vol. iv. p. 274.]

'The Society has never interfered, and has no disposition to interfere with the rights of private property.' * * 'The alarm for the rights of property appears to have subsided, and the Society is no longer charged with any sinister or insidious design. It has constantly disclaimed any intention of disturbing the rights of others; and its conduct entitles its declaration to credit.' * * 'The American Colonization Society has, at all times, solemnly disavowed any purpose of interference with the institutions or rights of our Southern communities.' * * 'Our friends, who are cursed with this greatest of human evils (slavery) deserve our kindest attention and consideration. Their property and safety are both involved.' – [African Repository, vol. v. pp. 215, 241, 307, 334.]

'It has constantly disclaimed all intention whatever of interfering, in the smallest degree, with the rights of property.' * * 'The Society, from considerations like these, whilst it disclaims the remotest idea of ever disturbing the right of property in slaves,' &c. * * 'It is not the object of this Society to liberate slaves, or touch the rights of property.' * * 'Honorable instances might be adduced of disinterested benevolence on the part of the owners of slaves, and of their sacrificing property to a large amount, in their enfranchisement and restoration to the land of their ancestors.' * * 'The American Society has disclaimed from the first moment of its institution, all intention of interfering with rights of property.' * * 'The federal government has no control over this subject: it concerns rights of property secured by the federal compact, upon which our civil liberties mainly depend; it is a part of the same collection of political rights; and any invasion of it would impair the tenure by which every other is held.' * * 'It is equally plain and undeniable, that the Society in the prosecution of this work, has never interfered or evinced even a disposition to interfere in any way with the rights of proprietors of slaves.' * * 'The slaveholder, so far from having just cause to complain of the Colonization Society, has reason to congratulate himself, that in this Institution a channel is opened up, in which the public feeling and public action can flow on, without doing violence to his rights.' – [African Repository, vol. vi. pp. 13, 69, 81, 153, 165, 169, 205, 363.]

'It was proper again and again to repeat, that it was far from the intention of the Society to affect, in any manner, the tenure by which a certain species of property is held. He was himself a slaveholder; and he considered that kind of property as inviolable as any other in the country.' – [Speech of Henry Clay. – First Annual Report.]

'Your committee would not thus favorably regard the prayer of the memorialists, if it sought to impair, in the slightest degree, the rights of private property.' – [Report of the committee of the House of Representatives of the United States, on the memorial of the President and Board of Managers of the Colonization Society. – Second Annual Report.]

'The Society has at all times recognised the constitutional and LEGITIMATE existence of slavery.' – [Tenth Annual Report.]

'The Society protests that it has no designs on the rights of the master in the slave – or the property in his slave, which the laws guarantee to him.' – [Fourteenth Annual Report.]

'Something he must yet be allowed to say, as regarded the object the Society was set up to accomplish. This object, if he understood it aright, involved no intrusion on property, NOR EVEN UPON PREJUDICE.' – [Fifteenth Annual Report.]

'To the slaveholder, who had charged upon them the wicked design of interfering with the RIGHTS OF PROPERTY under the specious pretext of removing a vicious and dangerous free population, they address themselves in a tone of conciliation and sympathy. We know your rights, say they, and we respect them.' * * 'Equally absurd and false is the objection, that this Society seeks indirectly to disturb the rights of property, and to interfere with the well established relation subsisting between master and slave.' – [African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 100, 228.]

'I repeat, that though not a slaveholder, yet I think that every man ought to be protected in his property, and as the laws of our country have decreed that negroes are property, every person that holds a slave, according to these laws, ought to be protected.' – ['A new and interesting View of Slavery.' By Humanitas, a colonization advocate. Baltimore, 1820.]

'We are made to disregard this description of property, and to touch without reserve the rights of our neighbors.' – [Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the New-Jersey Colonization Society.]

Thus the American Colonization Society shamelessly surrenders the claims of justice, and leaves the enemies of oppression weaponless! Hence it rejects the proposition, that man cannot hold property in man; and we are called upon to prove that which is self-evident. No accidental differences of condition or complexion – no vicissitudes of fortune – no reprisal or purchase or inheritance, can justly make one individual the slave of another. When God created man, he gave him dominion over the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field; but not over his fellow man. 'All men are born free and equal,' and are 'made of one blood.' Shall we look to wealth as giving one a title to the labor and freedom of another? Wealth is the creature of circumstances, and not an arbitrary law of nature. It takes to itself wings, and flies away; and he who is an opulent tyrant to-day, may on this principle be an impoverished slave to-morrow. Does physical strength make valid this claim? This, too, is evanescent: sickness and age would ultimately degrade the most muscular tyrants to servitude; and mankind would be composed of but two parties – the strong and the weak. Can high birth annul the rights of the lower classes? There is no difference at their birth, between the children of the beggar and those of the king. 'We brought nothing into this world,' says an inspired apostle, 'and it is certain we can carry nothing out.'

Man is created a rational being; and therefore he is a subject of moral government, and accountable. Being rational and accountable, he is bound to improve his mind and intellect. With this design, his Creator has outstretched the heavens, and set the sun in his course, and hung out the burning jewels of the sky, and spread abroad the green earth, and poured out the seas, that he might steadily progress in knowledge.

The slaves are men; they were born, then, as free as their masters; they cannot be property; and he who denies them an opportunity to improve their faculties, comes into collision with Jehovah, and incurs a fearful responsibility. But we know that they are not treated like rational beings, and that oppression almost entirely obliterates their sense of moral obligation to God or man.

I fully coincide in opinion with the authoress of a work entitled, 'Immediate, not Gradual Abolition,' that the holder of a slave, whether he obtained him by purchase or by inheritance, is as guilty as the original thief.¹² The wretch who stole him could by no possible means acquire or transmit the right to make a slave of him, or to keep him in slavery. He has a right to his liberty:– through whatever number of transfers the usurpation of it may have passed, the right is undiminished.

No man, says Algernon Sidney, can have a right over others, unless it be by them granted to him: That which is not just, is not law; and that which is not law, ought not to be in force: Whosoever grounds his pretensions of right upon usurpation and tyranny, declares himself to be an usurper and a tyrant – that is, an enemy to God and man – and to have no right at all: That which was unjust in its beginning, can of itself never change its nature: He who persists in doing injustice, aggravates it, and takes upon himself all the guilt of his predecessors: The right to be free is a truth planted in the hearts of men, and acknowledged so to be by all who have hearkened to the voice of nature, and disproved by none but such as through wickedness, stupidity, or baseness of spirit, seem to have degenerated into the worst of beasts, and to have retained nothing of men but the outward shape, or the ability of doing those mischiefs which they have learnt from their master the devil.

The following is the indignant, emphatic, eloquent language of Henry Brougham, on the subject of slave property:

'Tell me not of rights – talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right – I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of the laws that sanction such a claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes – the same throughout the world, the same in all times – such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, wealth and knowledge; to another, all unutterable woes; – such it is at this day: it is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy, that man can hold property in man! In vain you appeal to treaties, to covenants between nations. The covenants of the Almighty, whether the old or the new, denounce such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they of old refer, who maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not untruly; for by one shameful compact, you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yet, in despite of law and of treaties, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this change to pass? Not assuredly by parliament leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the planters beware – let their assemblies beware – let the government at home beware – let the parliament beware! the same country is once more awake, – awake to the condition of negro slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave trade; and, if it shall descend again, they, on whom its crash shall fall, will not be destroyed before I have warned them; but I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judgments of God!'

Is this the language of fanaticism? Is Henry Brougham a madman?

The following extracts must close the evidence in support of my third allegation, that the Colonization Society disregards the fundamental principle of human liberty and equality, that man cannot hold property in man:

'Let me ask, who can wish under existing circumstances that the constitution should be altered, when it must bring with it a violation of property– and when that violation of private property must engender such hostility of feelings, and elicit such bitter vituperation? The whole Union would feel a concussion, and no one can count the costs of the contest.' * * * 'By means of our colony, they may remove their slaves and restore them to freedom – and at the same time no way jeopardize the safety of themselves or their property.' – [Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the New-Jersey Colonization Society.]

'The establishment of our colony will afford facilities to proprietors for completing in Africa the exercise of the right which can only be partially exercised in this country, of disposing of our property, in our own way, without injury to the community.' – [Fourteenth Annual Report.]

What audacity do those advocates of the Society exhibit, who use, in reference to beings made a little lower than the angels, language like this – 'disposing of our property in our own way' – 'we hold their slaves, as we hold their other property, SACRED'!!¹³ If they really mean and believe what they say, it is something more heinous than impertinence to urge the planters to dispossess themselves of their property by colonization; and if the slaves belong of right to them, – are on a par with goods and chattels, – how idle, how supremely ridiculous it is to mourn over their wretched condition, to sigh for their emancipation, to declaim against the evil and wickedness of slavery, or even to denounce the slave trade! But the unfortunate blacks are not now, and never can be, the property of the planters; consequently the claims of their pretended owners are no better than those of the pirate or highway robber.

SECTION IV

THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY INCREASES THE VALUE OF SLAVES

I come now to my fourth charge, – which, although not more serious or consequential than any of the foregoing, may possibly create more surprise, – namely, that the Society increases the value of slaves, and adds strength and security to the system of slavery. It is the discovery of this fact that is so wonderfully, and to many superficial observers so inexplicably, increasing the popularity of the Society at the south. It would require more pages of this work than its necessarily contracted limits permit, to sum up minutely the evidence on this point, and to give those illustrations which might serve more clearly to establish its validity. The most common, as it is the most potent, argument used by colonization agents among slave owners, to secure their patronage, is, – 'The successful prosecution of our scheme will remove the chief source of danger to yourselves, and enable you to hold your property in greater security: the presence of free persons of color among your slaves is eminently calculated to make them insubordinate, and to procure their violent emancipation.' This argument, I say, is introduced into every conversation, and every public address, and every essay; and whoever carefully consults the numbers of the African Repository, through seven volumes, will find it repeated in almost every appeal to the south.

I choose to consider the testimony of southern men, in regard to the invigorating effects of the colonization enterprise upon the system of slavery, conclusive. Here is a very small portion of it: more may be found under the sixth section of this work.

'The object of the Colonization Society commends itself to every class of society. The landed proprietor may ENHANCE THE VALUE OF HIS PROPERTY by assisting the enterprise.' – [African Repository, vol. i. p. 67.]

'But is it not certain, that should the people of the Southern States refuse to adopt the opinions of the Colonization Society, [relative to the gradual abolition of slavery,] and continue to consider it both just and politic to leave, untouched, a system, for the termination of which, we think the whole wisdom and energy of the States should be put in requisition, that they will CONTRIBUTE MORE EFFECTUALLY TO THE CONTINUANCE AND STRENGTH OF THIS SYSTEM, by removing those now free, than by any or all other methods which can possibly be devised? Such has been the opinion expressed by Southern gentlemen of the first talents and distinction. Eminent individuals have, we doubt not, lent their aid to this cause, in expectation of at once accomplishing a generous and noble work for the objects of their patronage and for Africa, and GUARDING THAT SYSTEM, the existence of which, though unfortunate, they deem necessary, by separating from it those, whose disturbing force augments its inherent vices, and darkens all the repulsive attributes of its character. In the decision of these individuals, as to the effects of the Colonization Society, we perceive no error of judgment: OUR BELIEF IS THE SAME AS THEIRS.' – [Idem, p. 227.]

'THE EXECUTION OF ITS SCHEME WOULD AUGMENT INSTEAD OF DIMINISHING THE VALUE OF THE PROPERTY LEFT BEHIND.' – [Idem, vol. ii. p. 344.]

'The removal of every single free black in America, would be productive of nothing but safety to the slaveholder, nor would the emancipation of as many as the benevolence of individual masters would send off, as far as I can see, be productive of disaffection among the remainder, more than the example of such as are every day set free, and sent to the Ohio or elsewhere; and if so large a part should ever be set free as to create discontent among the remainder, (and nothing but the emancipation of a great majority can do this,) yet that remainder must then, from the terms of the proposition, be so much diminished, as to be easily kept down by superior numbers.' – [Idem, vol. iii. p. 202.]

'The tendency of the scheme, and one of its objects, is to secure slaveholders and the whole Southern country, against certain evil consequences, growing out of the present threefold mixture of our population.' – [Idem, vol. iv. p. 274.]

'We all know the effects produced on our slaves by the fascinating, but delusive appearance of happiness, exhibited in persons of their own complexion, roaming in idleness and vice among them. By removing the most fruitful source of discontent from among our slaves, we should render them more industrious and attentive to our commands; and by rendering them more industrious and obedient, we should naturally secure their better treatment – we should ameliorate their condition. Our enemies have admitted that good would result from the removal of this class. Caius Gracchus declares, that if the Society could attain "this single object in good faith, (the removal of the free people of color) he should, perhaps, be among the last citizens in the commonwealth – who would raise his voice against it," and the author of the Crisis (who is doubtless regarded as authority in South Carolina) acknowledges, "that there is no doubt but that if we in the South, were relieved of this population, it would be better for our southern cities, where they principally reside." Nothing can be more plain then, than that the Colonization Society, in its efforts to remove the free people of color, is accomplishing a work to which the citizens of the South, whether friends or foes to the Society, have given their decided approbation.' – [Idem, vol. vi. p. 205.]

'If, as is most confidently believed, the colonization of the free people of color will render the slave who remains in America more obedient, more faithful, more honest, and, consequently, more useful to his master,' &c. – [Second Annual Report.]

'There was but one way, [to avert danger,] but that might be made effectual, fortunately! It was to PROVIDE AND KEEP OPEN A DRAIN FOR THE EXCESS BEYOND THE OCCASIONS OF PROFITABLE EMPLOYMENT. Mr Archer had been stating the case in the supposition, that after the present class of free blacks had been exhausted, by the operation of the plan he was recommending, others would be supplied for its action, in the proportion of the excess of colored population it would be necessary to throw off, by the process of voluntary manumission or sale. This effect must result inevitably from the depreciating value of the slaves ensuing their disproportionate multiplication. The depreciation would be relieved and retarded at the same time, by the process. The two operations would aid reciprocally, and sustain each other, and both be in the highest degree beneficial. It was on the ground of interest, therefore, the most indisputable pecuniary interest, that he addressed himself to the people and Legislatures of the slaveholding States.' – [Speech of Mr Archer. – Fifteenth Annual Report.]

'Every motive which operates on the minds of slaveholders, tending to make the colonization of the free blacks an object of interest to them, should operate in an equal degree to secure the hearty co-operation of the government of every slaveholding State.' – [African Repository, vol. vii. p. 176.]

'None are obliged to follow our example; AND THOSE WHO DO NOT, WILL FIND THE VALUE OF THEIR NEGROES INCREASED BY THE DEPARTURE OF OURS.' – [An advocate of colonization in the Western (Ky.) Luminary.]

'So far from its having a dangerous tendency, when properly considered, it will be viewed as AN ADDITIONAL GUARD TO OUR PECULIAR SPECIES OF PROPERTY.' – [An advocate of the Society in the New-Orleans Argus.]

'The slaveholder, who is in danger of having his slaves contaminated by their free friends of color, will not only be relieved from this danger, but THE VALUE OF HIS SLAVE WILL BE ENHANCED.' – [A new and interesting View of Slavery. By Humanitas, a colonization advocate. Baltimore, 1820.]

It is perfectly obvious, that whatever tends to weaken and depress the present system, must render the holding of slaves less desirable, and the prospect of emancipation more auspicious. Cherishing this conviction, thousands of individuals in this country, and tens of thousands in Great Britain, are led by conscientious motives to abstain from the use of productions raised by slave labor, and to prefer those only which are the fruits of the toil of freemen. They believe in the soundness of the axiom, that 'the receiver is as bad as the thief;' and knowing that the slaves are held in bondage not on the ground of benevolence, or because their liberation would endanger the public safety, but because they are profitable to their owners, they also believe that the consumers of slave goods contribute to a fund for supporting slavery with all its abominations; that they are the Alpha and the Omega of the business; that the slave-trader, the slave-owner, and the slave-driver, are virtually the agents of the consumer, for by holding out the temptation, he is the original cause, the first mover in the horrid process; that we are imperiously called upon to refuse those articles of luxury, which are obtained at an absolute and lavish waste of the blood of our fellow men; that a merchant, who loads his vessel with the proceeds of slavery, does nearly as much in helping forward the slave trade, as he who loads his vessel in Africa with slaves – they are both twisting the same rope at different ends; that our patronage is putting an immense bribe into the hands of the slaveholders to kidnap, rob and oppress; that, were it not for this, they would be compelled by sheer necessity to liberate their slaves – for as soon as slave labor becomes unprofitable, the horrid system cannot be upheld.

None of these scruples, to my knowledge, are entertained by colonizationists: their only aim and anxiety seem to be, 'to prune and nourish the system,' – not to overthrow it; to increase the avarice of the planters by rendering the labor of their bondmen more productive, – not to abridge and starve it; to remove the cause of those apprehensions which might lead them to break the fetters of their victims, – not to perpetuate it; 'to provide (I quote the confession of the last distinguished proselyte to the Society, Mr Archer of Virginia) and to keep open a drain for the excess of increase beyond the occasions of PROFITABLE EMPLOYMENT,' – not to make slave labor ruinous to the planters.

By removing whatever number of slaves it be, from this country, the number which remains must be diminished – and the more the number which remains is diminished, the more helpless will they become, the less will be the hope of their ever recovering their own liberty, and the more and the longer they will be trampled upon.

The greater the number of slaves transported, the greater will be the value of the labor of those who remain; the more valuable their labor is, the greater will be the temptation to over-labor them, and the more, of course, they will be oppressed.¹⁴

The increase of the free colored population disturbs the security of the planters, and forces many to manumit their slaves through sheer terror. The expatriation of this class, therefore, manifestly tends to quiet the apprehensions of the oppressors, to rivet more firmly the chains of the slaves, to make their services in higher demand, and to render even their gradual emancipation impracticable.

Thus the American Colonization Society is the apologist, the friend, and the patron of SLAVEHOLDERS and SLAVERY!