efined society, or deprived of literary, religious,
or political privileges on account of the tincture of his skin. If
this prejudice is the fiat of the Almighty, most wonderful is it,
that of all the kindreds of the earth, none have been found
submissive to the heavenly impulse, excepting the white inhabitants
of North America; and of these, it is no less strange than true,
that this divine principle of repulsion is most energetic in such
persons as, in other respects, are the least observant of their
Maker's will. This prejudice is sometimes erroneously regarded as
the _cause_ of slavery; and some zealous advocates of emancipation
have flattered themselves that, could the prejudice be destroyed,
negro slavery would fall with it. Such persons have very inadequate
ideas of the malignity of slavery. They forget that the slaves in
Greece and Rome were of the same hue as their masters; and that at
the South, the value of a slave, especially of a female, rises, as
the complexion recedes from the African standard.

Were we to inquire into the geography of this prejudice, we should
find that the localities in which it attains its rankest luxuriance,
are not the rice swamps of Georgia, nor the sugar fields of Louisiana,
but the hills and valleys of New England, and the prairies of Ohio!
It is a fact of acknowledged notoriety, that however severe may be
the laws against colored people at the South, the prejudice against
their _persons_ is far weaker than among ourselves.

It is not necessary for our present purpose, to enter into a
particular investigation of the condition of the free negroes in the
slave States. We all know that they suffer every form of oppression
which the laws can inflict upon persons not actually slaves. That
unjust and cruel enactments should proceed from a people who keep
two millions of their fellow men in abject bondage, and who believe
such enactments essential to the maintenance of their despotism,
certainly affords no cause for surprise.

We turn to the free States, where slavery has not directly steeled
our hearts against human suffering, and where no supposed danger of
insurrection affords a pretext for keeping the free blacks in
ignorance and degradation; and we ask, what is the character of the
prejudice against color _here_? Let the Rev. Mr. Bacon, of
Connecticut, answer the question. This gentleman, in a vindication
of the Colonization Society, assures us, "The _Soodra_ is not
farther