uge in Liberia have built up a
Republic of their own; and with the view of encouraging them to laudable
effort, have been recognized as an independent nation, by five of the
great governments of the earth. But what has been the progress of those
who remained behind, in the vain hope of rising to an equality with the
whites, and of assisting in abolishing American slavery?

We offer no opinion, here, of our own, as to the present social and
moral condition of the free colored people in the North. What it was at
the time of the founding of Liberia, has already been shown. On this
subject we might quote largely from the proceedings of the Conventions
of the colored people, and the writings of their editors, so as to
produce a dark picture indeed; but this would be cruel, as their voices
are but the wailings of sensitive and benevolent hearts, while weeping
over the moral desolations that, for ages, have overwhelmed their
people. Nor shall we multiply testimony on the subject; but in this, as
in the case of Canada and the West Indies, allow the abolitionists to
speak of their own schemes. The Hon. Gerrit Smith, in his letter to
Governor Hunt, of New York, in 1852, while speaking of his ineffectual
efforts, for fifteen years past, to prevail upon the free colored people
to betake themselves to mechanical and agricultural pursuits, says:

"Suppose, moreover, that during all these fifteen years, they had been
quitting the cities, _where the mass of them rot, both physically and
morally_, and had gone into the country to become farmers and
mechanics--suppose, I say, all this--and who would have the hardihood to
affirm that the Colonization Society lives upon the malignity of the
whites--but it is true that it lives upon _the voluntary degradation of
the blacks_. I do not say that the colored people are more debased than
the white people would be if persecuted, oppressed and outraged as are
the colored people. But I do say that they are debased, deeply debased;
and that to recover themselves they must become heroes, self-denying
heroes, capable of achieving a great moral victory--a two-fold
victory--a victory over themselves and a victory over their enemies."

The _New York Tribune_, September 22, 1855, in noticing the movements of
the colored people of New York, to secure to themselves equal suffrage,
thus gives utterance to its views of their moral condition:

"Most earnestly desiring the enfranchisement of the Afric-America