Thoughts on African ColonizationGarrison, William Lloyd
Philosophy
Thoughts on African Colonization
Garrison, William Lloyd
African Americans -- Colonization -- Africa; American Colonization Society; Slavery -- United States
'It is of vast importance to these people, as a class, that
their hopes and expectations of temporal prosperity _should be
turned to Africa_, and that they should not regard our country
as their permanent residence, or as that country in which they
will _ever_, as a people, enjoy equal privileges and blessings
with the whites.'--[Rev. Mr Gurley's Letter to the Rev. S. S.
Jocelyn.]
'To attain solid happiness and permanent respectability, they
should now remove to a more congenial clime.... To raise them to
a level with the whites is AN IMPOSSIBILITY.'--[New-Haven
Religious Intelligencer.]
'In Liberia--the land of their forefathers, they will be
restored to real freedom, which they have never yet enjoyed, and
which it is folly for them to expect they can ever enjoy among
the whites.'--[Norfolk Herald.]
'My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a
noise in me.' Are we pagans, are we savages, are we devils? Can pagans,
or savages, or devils, exhibit a more implacable spirit, than is seen in
the foregoing extracts? It is enough to cause the very stones to cry
out, and the beasts of the field to rebuke us.
Of this I am sure: no man, who is truly willing to admit the people of
color to an equality with himself, can see any insuperable difficulty in
effecting their elevation. When, therefore, I hear an
individual--especially a professor of Christianity--strenuously
contending that there can be no fellowship with them, I cannot help
suspecting the sincerity of his own republicanism or piety, or thinking
that the beam is in his own eye. My bible assures me that the day is
coming when even the 'wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid, and the wolf and the young lion and the
fatling together;' and, if this be possible, I see no cause why those of
the same species--God's rational creatures--fellow countrymen, in truth,
cannot dwell in harmony together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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