"Without arts, without habits of industry, and unaccustomed to provide by their own exertions and foresight for their wants, the colony will soon become the abode of every vice, and the home of every misery. Soon will the light of Christianity, which now dawns among that portion of our species, be cut out by the clouds of ignorance, and their day of life be closed, without the illumination of the gospel. "To those of our brethren who shall be left behind, there will be assured perpetual slavery and augmented sufferings. Diminished in numbers, the slave population of the southern states, which by their magnitude alarms its proprietors, will be easily secured. Those who among their bondsmen, who feel that they should be free, by right which all mankind have from God and from nature, will be sent to the colony; and the timid and submissive will be retained, and subjected to increasing rigor. Year after year will witness those means to assure safety and submission among their slaves, and the southern masters will colonize only those who it may be dangerous to keep among them. The bondage of a large portion of our members will thus be rendered perpetual. "Disclaiming, as we emphatically do, a wish or desire to interpose our opinions and feelings between the plan of colonization and the judgment of those whose wisdom as far as exceeds ours as their situations are exalted above ours, we humbly, respectfully, and fervently intreat and beseech your disapprobation of the plan of colonization now offered by the American Society for colonizing the free people of color of the United States. Here in the city of Philadelphia, where the voice of the suffering sons of Africa was first heard; where was first commenced the work of abolition, on which heaven has smiled, for it could have had success only from the Great Maker; will not a purpose be assisted which will state the cause of the entire abolition of slavery in the United States, and which may defeat it altogether; which proffers to those who do not ask for them what it calls benefits, but which they consider injurious and which must insure to the multitudes whose prayers can only reach you through us, misery, sufferings, and perpetual slavery. "James Forten, _Chairman_, "Russell Parrott, _Secretary_." [8] Garrison, "Thoughts on Colonization," p. 10. [9] _The African Repository_, II, 295 _et seq._ [10] It must be borne in mind, too, that _The African Repository_, in which appeared most of the letters of Negroes favoring emigration to Africa, was the organ of the American Colonization Society. [11] _The African Repository_, VII, 216. [12] Ibid., XII, 149-150. [13] During these years conditions were becoming intolerable for the free blacks in the South. [14] _The African Repository_, VII, 230.