erambulating. In rail roads, and hotels, and stages, and steamers, they
have been placed incessantly in contact with the news, the views, the
motives, and the ideas of the day. Compare the free black with ordinary
white men without advantages, and he stands well. Add to this
cultivation, that the negro body is strong and healthy, and the negro
mind keen and bright, though not profound nor philosophical, and you
have at once a formidable warrior, with a little discipline and
knowledge of weapons. There is no doubt that the picked American free
blacks, would be five times, ten times as efficient in the field of
battle as the same number of native Africans."

Why is it then, that the efforts for the moral elevation of the free
colored people, have been so unsuccessful? Before answering this
question, it is necessary to call attention to the fact, that
abolitionists seem to be sadly disappointed in their expectations, as to
the progress of the free colored people. Their vexation at the
stubborness of the negroes, and the consequent failure of their
measures, is very clearly manifested in the complaining language, used
by Gerrit Smith, toward the colored people of the eastern cities, as
well as by the contempt expressed by the American Missionary
Association, for the colored preachers of Canada. They had found an
apology, for their want of success in the United States, in the presence
and influence of colonizationists; but no such excuse can be made for
their want of success in Canada and the West Indies. Having failed in
their anticipations, now they would fain shelter themselves under the
pretense, that a people once subjected to slavery, even when liberated,
can not be elevated in a single generation; that the case of adults,
raised in bondage, like heathen of similar age, is hopeless, and their
children, only, can make such progress as will repay the missionary for
his toil. But they will not be allowed to escape the censure due to
their want of discrimination and foresight, by any such plea; as the
success of the Republic of Liberia, conducted from infancy to
independence, almost wholly by liberated slaves, and those who were born
and raised in the midst of slavery, attests the falsity of their
assumption.

But to return. Why have the efforts for the elevation of the free
colored people, not been more successful? On this point our remarks may
be limited to our own free colored people. The barrier to their progress
her