"I speak the words of soberness and truth when I say that the most inveterate, the most formidable, the deadliest enemy of the peace, prosperity, and happiness of the colored population of the United States, is that system of African colonization which originated in and is perpetuated by a worldly, Pharaoh-like policy beneath the dignity of a magnanimous and Christian people;--a system which receives much of its vitality from _ad captandum_ appeals to popular prejudices, and to the unholy, groveling passions of the canaille;--a system that interposes every possible obstacle in the way of the improvement and elevation of the colored man in the land of his birth;--that instigates the enactment of laws whose design and tendency are obviously to annoy him, to make him feel, while at home, that he is a stranger and a pilgrim--nay more,--to make him 'wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked;'--to make him 'a hissing and a by-word,' 'a fugitive and a vagabond' throughout the American Union;--a system that is so irreconcilably opposed to the purpose of God in making 'of _one_ blood all nations for to dwell on _all_ the face of the earth,' that when the dying slaveholder, under the lashes of a guilty conscience, would give to his slaves unqualified freedom, it wickedly interposes, and persuades him that 'to do justly and love mercy' would be to inflict an irreparable injury upon the community, and that to do his duty to God and his fellow-creatures, under the circumstances, he should bequeath to his surviving slaves the cruel alternative of _either expatriation to a far-off, pestilential clime, with the prospect of a premature death, or perpetual slavery, with its untold horrors, in his native land_."--_Watkins._ Many objections are offered against immediate emancipation, but they are evidently mere _excuses_. This may be laid down as a safe rule: _Offer no objection to the manumission of slaves which would not satisfy you were you yourselves the slaves to be manumitted._ Tried by this reasonable and scriptural rule all apologies, objections and excuses offered for the perpetuation of human bondage, vanish away. There can be no good reason advanced for the continuance of this curse a single year longer. Too long already has it dishonored our churches and our country. Too many souls have been already involved by it in hopeless ruin. Too many generations of slaves have already gone in sorrow and despair down to their graves. Too long has the public conscience been debauched. Justice, humanity and religion with united voice call for immediate emancipation. If our free institutions are to be preserved they must be released from the folds and the deadly charm of this monster serpent. Freedom cannot flourish in its coils nor survive in its slimy embrace.