known, emancipated blacks, as a class, could only with very moderate and difficult advances recover from their totally incompetent state, in respect of literary and scientific qualification. And to such a period of time does Mr. Birney extend the slow progress of the blacks to a social equality with the whites, that he adds, almost immediately upon the close of the passage which has been above quoted, the following sentiment: "It is very certain, that so strong would be the prejudice against amalgamation, by the present generation of adults, and probably for several to come, that even the valor of a Sesostris, or the charms of a Cleopatra, could not overcome it;" and then goes on with great good humor, nay, somewhat facetiously, to remark: "It seems to my poor judgment scarcely a sufficient reason for continuing a great trespass against our fellow-men, because some hundred years hence, a princeroyal of Jamaica, or the Duke of Barbadoes, the Countess of Porto Rico, or one of the royal maids of Cuba, dressed in the livery of the burnished sun,' may overcome it in the person of one of our great-great-great-grand-children."

We do not gather from Mr. Birney's language, (as has been already remarked,) any certainty, that he approves of the existence of that degradation of caste and that physical repugnance which he so forcibly represents, both in its extent and its inevitable duration; but, wrong or right, the state of things which Mr. B. has made the foundation of his argument, does in fact exist, and does exert upon the class who are the subjects of that inferiority of caste, and the objects of that repugnance, a most lamentably depressing influence. Indeed, that influence is, in its very nature, so withering to all the hopes and motives which form the spring of active and persevering efforts among men, that one ought not to be accused of rashness, who should esteem it to be a moral miracle, if any race of men who are its subjects, should rise to their proper station among mankind, except by the most slow and painful process. To rise from ignorance to intelligence, from poverty to competence, from degradation of caste, to respectability of station, implies a change which, even in the case of a select individual, and under the most favoring encouragements and incitements possible, could only be expected from the exercise of much mental vigor, and much perseverance in manly effort. How great a wonder, then, do we justly esteem it, wherever we observe this change taking place in some single instance, without the aid of those encouragements and incitements! How mighty a wonder would it be, and how visionary to look for it, that a whole race should work out for themselves such a change, when the highest personal motive addressed them as individuals, is the step from one inferior caste to another somewhat less inferior, though still at a far remove from social equality; and when the highest patriotic motive addressed to them as a race, is the expectation of social equality and active respectability for some remote generation of their children's children!

It was precisely in this drooping state of their hopes and motives, that New-England colonization found the free blacks when she first put forth a hand to attempt their effectual revival and invigoration. The plan was, to remove at once so many of this race, as should concur in the removal, from under the blighting and mildew of a state of things which it was vain to deny did in fact exist, and of which hope itself could not distinctly see the termination. It was, to take those who were deemed, and who deemed themselves, inferiors among the whites, and put them where they would be deemed and would be equals among themselves, and superiors among the surrounding tribes; and thus, in relation to society, to make them become, by the mere passage of an ocean in space, what otherwise their race could not become, except by the passage of more than an ocean of time. The idea was plain, one may almost say, to the mind of childhood itself; and it charmed the benevolent then, as it charms the body of them still, by the magic of its greatness and its simplicity. The only question was, whether a suitable spot could be found, on which to carry the idea into execution. It was not, however, as distinctly kept in mind as perhaps it ought to have been, that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth;" so that when the site which was pitched upon for the infant colony was observed to be wonderfully fertile in soil, rich in products that might form the staples of national wealth and importance, and furnished with ports easy of access to navigators; such a current of excited and warm expectations set in the hearts of all the favorers of the plan, as swept away, at first, the salutary fear of those impending calamities and disasters which experience has taught God's people, almost universally, to expect in the outset of every enterprise, having "good will to men" for its motto.

Our business is not, however, just now, with the mistakes that attended the execution of the plan at the outset, or the heresies into which it may sometimes have been seduced at an after period; but with the great plan itself, and the purposes of benevolence of which it was meant to be the instrument. It was expected that the infant settlement planted by colonization on the African coast, would be the seed of a future extended nation; and this expectation was sustained by the analogy of all similar migrations, from the departure of the Israelites for the promised land, the landing of the Egyptians on the Grecian shores, of the Greeks in Italy, -of the Romans in more northern Europe, of the Europeans in the New World, -down to the last and comparatively recent but memorable disembarkation upon Plymouth rock. But, not as in the case of the Egyptian, Grecian and Italian emigrants, who carried civilization and the arts combined with paganism and all heathenish superstitions, it was expected that this should introduce on the shores of West-Africa, agriculture, the arts, commerce, education and civilized life, in connection with the true religion; forming a state of society like that of New-England, with its churches, its school-houses, its industrious population, and busy marts of trade. It was not at that time known, as well as experience has since taught it, that if missionaries are sent to Africa, they will perish in long succession, until the malignant influence of the climate shall, in some way, have been met and overcome; but it was expected, that the colonies should not only be themselves bright spots upon a darkened coast, but form stations for widely extended missionary operations.

It was anticipated, that the existence of a free, enlightened and happy nation of Africans, would give an impulse to the mind and the enterprise of the colored race all over the globe,-that it would prove them unfit to be slaves, and make a continuance of their bondage impossible, by showing them to be as capable of intelligence, refinement and moral worth, as any race among the fairest in Europe or America.

It was said with truth, that when an agricultural nation should arise, and bring into our market cotton, sugar, and other tropical staples, as the products of free labor, and as such, dispose of them on our own wharves, at a less price than the similar product of our slave-labor, slavery would be cut up by the root, in consequence of its profitable character being taken away; and it was also reasonably argued, that the slave-trade would find an effective foe in a powerful christian nation, placed upon the very spot where its horrors were perpetrated.

Finally, it was said, (not to enter minutely into all the anticipated influences of the plan,) that this colony would give an impulse to emancipation, by opening a door to the humane, by which their slaves might be made free, without being cast upon society in a condition of hopelessness and misery, and by affording to all slaveowners a method of emancipation, free from the dangers to society, real or imaginary, which an unconditional emancipation on the soil was supposed to create and imply.

This is the original scheme of colonization; and many a man will open his eyes with astonishment, when he reads that this is the scheme which he hears constantly spoken against, in addresses and public prints, the very scheme which the Anti-Slavery Convention at Philadelphia declared, in the exposition of their elementary principles, to be " delusive, cruel and dangerous," and the destruction of which the managers of the American Anti-Slavery Society, at the last New-York anniversaries, gravely voted to be essential to the success of their holy cause. Since the first proposal of the scheme, light has greatly increased upon all the subjects on which it was designed to have a bearing, and has considerably modified the views of its friends and supporters. On the subject of slavery, for our part, we are fully satisfied, that colonization will never have opportunity to exert much influence, other than that which it has exerted already, by promoting and extending, and by binding together in action, as well as in speculation, in a course of labor, of alms-giving and of prayer, that benevolent feeling towards the blacks, which, before its promulgation, existed in scattered parcels throughout the land; and by thus exciting an interest which must infallibly turn into the channel of any rational and effective scheme for abolishing slavery, that may at any time be proposed. Slavery, we doubt not, will be taken entirely out of the influence of colonization, considered as a direct remedy for slavery, by being abolished long before that influence can have opportunity to act; still the influences named above, so far as they go, are all auxiliary to the great work, and truly belong to the scheme, as they were at first supposed to do. The light which has come in, has also shown errors in the scheme, as actually conducted, and deviations from the original plan, which must be corrected; but still, the view which we have given, is a fair statement of New-England views of colonization : it is that simple and unexceptionable scheme which genuine New-England, as we have before remarked, has always sustained, and is now sustaining: and let him who will venture to speak words of causeless reproach against it, speak them; let him who hopes for happiness in heaven by abusing it, abuse it; whether it be the Hon. William Jay or Mr. Garrison.

It is time to give our readers who have not perused the works which we have placed at the head of this article, some idea of their contents, so far as they relate to colonization: for on the subject of slavery, we wish it to be understood, that, although we have not joined the American Anti-Slavery Society, we have, in the present article, no contest with Mr. Jay, or any of his fellow-abolitionists. We do not approve, it is true, in some important particulars, their principles or their spirit; but their end is noble; their aims are, on the whole, benevolent and patriotic; the basis of their constitution is essentially truth, and their success, unless they shall hinder it by holding dangerous error and unhallowed fire in union with their benevolence and truth, is certain. All that we are now contending against, is, their strangely and almost unaccountably turning aside from the purpose to which the constitution of their society limits them, to hinder the success of another cause, entirely distinct, although collateral, their persecuting it and vowing its entire overthrow. It is this unauthorized and unconstitutional enterprise of anti-colonization, which is the root of by far the greater part of the bitterness, misapprehension, disparagement of motives, and occasionally something like malignity, in which a large part even of the most estimable anti-colonizationists do really appear to indulge; while they, at the same time, most unceasingly as well as justly complain of the exercise, toward themselves, of the same misapprehension and unhallowed feeling on the part of very many of their opponents.

But we have a complaint to make, in the outset, upon the other side of the question. We complain of the slighting terms which Dr. Reese has applied, in his preface, to the work of Mr. Jay; not so much because they are slighting, as because they are not founded, as we think, in truth, and are calculated, of course, to injure the cause of truth, instead of promoting it. A few passages will show our meaning, and the ground of our apprehensions:

Such were my impressions when I had finished its perusal; and a similar estimate of the utter impotency of the book, is, I have since learned, very generally entertained, by those of our fellow-citizens who are well informed in relation to the history and operations of the colonization enterprise. I therefore felt no disposition to attempt a reply. * * * But, as many of our friends, who agree with me in my view of the harmlessness of the assault which Mr. Jay's book contains, express their apprehensions lest the magic of his name upon its title page may mislead the "unlearned and unwary," and that multitudes of such may be taught to infer from our silence, that we cannot or dare not meet this "giant" in the field of discussion,' etc. etc. etc. Reese, p. v.

Again:

'If the reader can excuse or explain such examples as those pointed out in the following Letters, in any milder and more christian language than that which imputes them to fanaticism, I shall rejoice, that it may hereafter be adopted. I confess for myself, that this is the only mantle to cover them, which it appears to me is furnished, even from the wardrobe of CHARITY itself.

On the one page we read, that the whole of the slaves in the United States are "kept in ignorance, and compelled to live without God, and to die without hope." And on another we are told, that "245,000" of these same slaves are "christians," and "possess a saving knowledge of the religion of Christ!"

At one time the Colonization Society is charged with "professing to be a remedy for slavery, and the only one;" and at another it is declared, that its "professed constitutional object is exclusively that of colonizing the free blacks and manumitted slaves, and, that it has no more right to meddle with slavery or emancipation, than a bible society?" On one page, the Colonization Society is called a "powerful institution," and on another, it is called "utterly impotent," a "weak, broken-winded, good for nothing team!"

In the one place we are told, first, that "the Colonization Society is in its general influence decidedly ANTI-CHRISTIAN," and that it can in no sense be termed a religious society; " and on the same page it is said, that this Colonization Society contains "multitudes of religious men." And again: "The Colonization Society unquestionably com

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