Thoughts on African ColonizationGarrison, William Lloyd
Philosophy
Thoughts on African Colonization
Garrison, William Lloyd
African Americans -- Colonization -- Africa; American Colonization Society; Slavery -- United States
education and the mechanical arts among the free people of color, and to
recover their lost rights. Religious professors, of all denominations,
must bear unqualified testimony against slavery. They must not support,
they must not palliate it. No slaveholder ought to be embraced within
the pale of a christian church; consequently, the churches must be
purified 'as by fire.' Slavery in the District of Columbia is sustained
in our national capacity: it ought, therefore, to be prostrated at a
blow. The clause in the Constitution should be erased, which tolerates,
greatly to the detriment and injustice of the non-slaveholding States, a
slave representation in Congress. Why should property be represented at
the impoverished south, and not at the opulent north?
To impair the force of this exposition, the ardent advocates of the
Colonization Society will undoubtedly attempt to evade the ground of
controversy, and lead uncautious minds astray in a labyrinth of
sophistry. But the question is not, whether the climate of Africa is
salubrious, nor whether the mortality among the emigrants has been
excessive, nor whether the colony is in a prosperous condition, nor
whether the transportation of our whole colored population can be
effected in thirty years or three centuries, nor whether any slaves have
been emancipated on condition of banishment; but whether the doctrines
and principles of the Society accord with the doctrines and principles
of the gospel, whether slaveholders are the just proprietors of their
slaves, whether it is not the sacred duty of the nation to abolish the
system of slavery now, and to recognise the people of color as brethren
and countrymen who have been unjustly treated and covered with unmerited
shame. _This is the question--and the only question._
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