nia; but, on that very account,
the book was published almost against his will. He projected a plan of
general emancipation, in his revision of the Virginia laws, but finally
presented a plan leaving slavery precisely where it was; and, in his
Memoir, he leaves a posthumous warning to the planters that they must,
at no distant day, emancipate their slaves, or that worse will follow;
but he withheld the publication of his prophecy till he should himself
be in the grave."--_Life of J. Q. Adams, page 177, 178._

[5] See a more extended detail of the proceedings in relation to this
subject, both in England and the colonies, in the Appendix.

[6] Providence, Rhode Island.

CHAPTER IV.

Dismal condition of Africa--Hopes of Wilberforce
disappointed--Organization of the American
Colonization Society--Its necessity, objects, and
policy--Public sentiment in its favor--Opposition
developes itself--Wm. Lloyd Garrison, James G.
Birney, Gerrit Smith--Effects of
opposition--Stimulants to Slavery--Exports of
Cotton--England sustaining American
Slavery--Failure of the Niger Expedition--Strength
of Slavery--Political action--Its failure--Its
fruits.

ANOTHER question, "How shall the slave trade be suppressed?" began to be
agitated near the close of the last century. The moral desolation
existing in Africa, was without a parallel among the nations of the
earth. When the last of our Northern States had freed its slaves, not a
single Christian Church had been successfully established in Africa, and
the slave trade was still legalized to the citizens of every Christian
nation. Even its subsequent prohibition, by the United States and
England, had no tendency to check the traffic, nor ameliorate the
condition of the African. The other Europeon powers, having now the
monopoly of the trade, continued to prosecute it with a vigor it never
felt before. The institution of slavery, while lessened in the United
States, where it had not yet been made profitable, was rapidly acquiring
an unprecedented enlargement in Cuba and Brazil, where its profitable
character had been more fully realized. How shall the slave trade be
annihilated, slavery extension prevented, and Africa receive a Christian
civilization? were questions that agitated the bosom of many a
philanthropist, long after Wilberforce had achieved his triumphs. It was
f