exile--this principle was levelled at the Colonization Society; and
while instant abolition formed the first, and denunciation of what
they call prejudice against color formed the last; hatred to
colonization formed the middle and active principle of the band. Of
this, it might be said, first, that it had the advantage of
contradicting all the wisdom and practice of mankind. Whether it was
meant to embrace women and minors--or at what age to establish the
beginning of rights so extraordinary and unprecedented, whether at
twenty-one, as here, or twenty-five, as in some countries, or
twenty-eight, as in others, had not yet been defined. Thus much at
least might be said--that if these rights resided in black men, they
resided in no others, of whatever hue or race; and the philosophers
who discovered their existence had found out something to compensate
these unhappy men for their unparalleled sufferings. It certainly need
not create surprise that we should listen with suspicion to such
dogmas taught by an Englishman, when we remember that, from time
immemorial, all the institutions of his own country were built upon
dogmas precisely opposite; and all her practice the reverse of the
preaching of the semi-national representative. Mr. Thompson says, a
man is a citizen by inherent right, wherever he is born; the British
monarchy, which Mr. Thompson says he prefers to all things else, says
on the contrary, that let a man be born where he may he is a Briton,
if born of British parents; and it both claims his allegiance, and
will extend to him every right of a subject born at home! Then why is
not a man an African if born of African parents in America, as well as
a Briton, if born of British parents there? Or why are we to be
attacked first with cannon on one side, and then with Billingsgate on
the other side of this vexed question? Nor did our own notions,
adverse as they were to those of Britain, conflict less with Mr. T.
and abolitionism on another part of the principle. All our notions
permit men to expatriate themselves, many of our constitutions
guarantee it as a natural right, and America had actually gone to war
with Britain in defence of that right in her unnaturalized citizens.
Britain had insisted on searching American vessels for British
sailors--America had refused to submit to the search; because, among
other things the man sought was, by naturalization, an American.
America did not oppose any of her citizens becoming Britons, if they
thought fit, and was resolved to maintain the right of those who chose
to become American citizens, from whatever country they might have
emigrated, and therefore could hear only with contempt this dictum of
abolitionism. Again he would say that, this principle is contrary to
common sense. Rights of citizenship were not to be considered natural
rights. They were given by the community--they might be withheld by
the community; and, therefore, to talk of their being indestructible,
was sheer nonsense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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