ound, that the passage of laws prohibiting the slave trade, and the
extermination of that traffic, were two distinct things--the one not
necessarily following the other. The success of Wilberforce with the
British Parliament, only increased the necessity for additional
philanthropic efforts; and a quarter of a century afterwards found the
evil vastly increased which he imagined was wholly destroyed.

It was at the period in the history of Africa, and of public sentiment
on slavery, which we have been considering, that the American
Colonization Society was organized. It began its labors when the eye of
the statesman, the philanthropist, and the Christian, could discover no
other plan of overcoming the moral desolation, the universal oppression
of the colored race, than by restoring the most enlightened of their
number to Africa itself. Emancipation, by States, had been at an end for
a dozen of years. The improvement of the free colored people, in the
presence of the slave, was considered impracticable. Slave labor had
become so profitable, as to leave little ground to expect general
emancipation, even though all other objections had been removed. The
slave trade had increased twenty-five per cent. during the preceding ten
years. Slavery was rapidly extending itself in the tropics, and could
not be arrested but by the suppression of the slave trade. The foothold
of the Christian missionary was yet so precarious in Africa, as to leave
it doubtful whether he could sustain his position.

The colonization of the free colored people in Africa, under the
teachings of the Christian men who were prepared to accompany them, it
was believed, would as fully meet all the conditions of the race, as was
possible in the then existing state of the world. It would separate
those who should emigrate from all further contact with slavery, and
from its depressing influences; it would relax the laws of the slave
States against emancipation, and lead to the more frequent liberation of
slaves; it would stimulate and encourage the colored people remaining
here, to engage in efforts for their own elevation; it would establish
free republics along the coast of Africa, and drive away the slave
trader; it would prevent the extension of slavery, by means of the slave
trade, in tropical America; it would introduce civilization and
Christianity among the people of Africa, and overturn their barbarism
and bloody superstitions; and, if successful, it wou