overture as embraced colonization might and should be extended to the
North, as well as the South, so as, with their consent, to colonize
beyond our limits the free blacks of _every State_.

In a former letter, published over my signature, of the 30th September,
1856, called 'AN APPEAL FOR THE UNION,' I said: '_I have never
believed in a peaceable dissolution of the Union_. * * _No; it will be
war_, CIVIL WAR, _of all others the most sanguinary and
ferocious._ * * _It will be marked_ * * _by frowning fortresses, by
opposing batteries, by gleaming sabres, by bristling bayonets, by the
tramp of contending armies, by towns and cities sacked and pillaged, by
dwellings given to the flames, and fields laid waste and desolate. It
will be a second fall of mankind; and while we shall be performing here
the bloody drama of a nations suicide, from_ THE THRONES OF
EUROPE _will arise the exulting shouts of despots, and upon their
gloomy banners shall be inscribed, as, they believe, never to be
effaced, their motto_, MAN IS INCAPABLE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT.'
Alluding to the subject of the present discussion, I then also said: '_I
see, too, what, in this probable crisis of my country's destiny, it is
my duty again to repeat from my Texas letter_: * * THE AFRICAN
RACE, _gradually disappearing from our borders, passing, in part,
out of our limits to Mexico, and Central and Southern America, and in
part returning to the shores of their ancestors, there, it is hoped, to
carry Christianity, civilization, and freedom throughout the benighted
regions of the sons of Ham_.' My views, then, of 1844, were thus
distinctly reiterated in 1856, in favor of the gradual extinction of
slavery, accompanied by colonization.

The President of the United States, in view of the limited appropriation
by Congress, and the economy of short voyages, has recommended one of
the great interoceanic routes through the American isthmus for a new
negro colony. It is a great object to secure the control of this isthmus
by a friendly race, born on our soil, and the selection corresponds with
the views expressed in my Texas letter of 1844. As, however, the negroes
can only be colonized by their own consent, we should therefore, and as
an act of humanity and justice, open all suitable homes abroad for their
free choice. After much reflection, I think it is their interest and
ours (when the nation shall make large and adequate appropriations),
mainly to seek Liberia as a pe