similar offer were made to every poor and unfortunate inhabitant of
Glasgow, and all of them chose to remain here, except one, and that
one were captivated by the account of some distant El Dorado, and
chose to push his fortune there, could the rest assume over this one
the right of saying, you shall not go; we are determined not to go,
and equally determined not to let you go. Yet the abolitionists have
been going about, from Dan to Beersheba, not only attacking and
vilifying the whites, for proposing to colonize the blacks with their
own free consent; but equally attacking the blacks for availing
themselves of the offer. And though the colony had been stigmatized as
a grave, as a place of skulls, it was the very place fitted by nature
for the black population, the land granted by God to their fathers. It
is in one sense, then, a matter of no moment, what the causes are
which induce the society to make the offer, or the black population to
emigrate to Africa--even on the showing of the abolitionists
themselves, the colored population are kept in a state of degradation;
and it is certainly just and good that means should be afforded them
for getting rid of that degradation. In the second place, he
maintained that this colonization scheme naturally tended to promote
the cause of general emancipation. To illustrate this, Mr.
Breckinridge read the following extract from the Maryland report of
1835, p. 17:--
The number of manumissions in the state reported to the board
since the last annual report, is two hundred and ninety-nine,
making the whole number reported as manumitted, since the
passage of the act of 1831, eleven hundred and one.
This extract showed that the scheme did not prevent manumission, but
had tended gradually to increase its amount. That this was the
intention and actual effect of the colonization scheme, he would now
prove to the meeting in so far as regarded Maryland; and if he did so
of that state, he supposed they would not find it difficult to believe
the same thing of other states, as it was against Maryland that Mr.
Thompson had expended his peculiar virulence. Mr. B. then read the
following:--
Resolved, That this society believe, and act upon the belief
that colonization has a tendency to promote emancipation, by
affording to the emancipated slave a home, where he can be
happier and better, in every point of view, than in this
country, and so inducing masters to manumit, for removal to
Africa, who would not manumit unconditionally.--3rd A. Rep.
page 5.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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