to our
moral and material progress, but, above all, to the down-trodden race so
long enslaved among us, to make the great experiment. If we succeed, it
will be a monument to our glory, that will endure when time shall have
crumbled the pyramids. If we fail, it will have been a noble effort in
the cause of justice and humanity. Here, with the sentiment almost
universal against the negro race, indicated by the votes and acts of all
sections, and their exclusion everywhere, North and South, practically,
from all social or political equality with the whites, they can never
have among us any of those hopes, aspirations, energy, or opportunities,
enabling them to test their capacity for great improvement. It is only
where they shall be equals among equals, that they can ever attain high
elevation. I take the facts as they are, and know that this prejudice of
race here is ineradicable. In making the vain and hopeless effort to
change it, we sacrifice to an impracticable idea our own good, and that
of the race whose welfare we seek to promote. Colonization has
heretofore been opposed by many, because they believed it hostile to
manumission; but now, when emancipation is proposed, with appropriations
to enable the manumitted to choose freely between remaining here and
homes elsewhere, why should such a system encounter any hostility?
Especially, when millions will vote for emancipation, if connected with
voluntary colonization, why continue to oppose it? What objection is
there to furnishing the means to enable the free or freed blacks to
remain or to emigrate, and why should any of their friends wish to
deprive them of such a privilege? Opposition springs also from
confounding the border with the seceded States--the slaves of the loyal
with those of the disloyal, and the conduct of the war; but the
questions are different and independent.

On this subject of what is called abroad the prejudice of color, the
North has been censured, even by many of our best friends. But it is
impossible for Europe, where the African race are not, and never have
been, either as slaves or freemen, to solve for us this most difficult
problem of the social equality of the white and black races. Where
marriage between them is unknown, such social equality cannot exist.
Europe has an idea and a theory, but no practical knowledge of the
subject. We have the facts and experience. Efforts have been made here
for a century to establish this social equali