lition of slavery.
On this condition alone gentlemen from the South and West can be
expected to co-operate. On this condition only, I have myself attended."

In the seventh Annual Report it is said, "An effort for the benefit of
the blacks, in which all parts of the country can unite, of course must
not have the abolition of slavery for its immediate object; _nor may it
aim directly at the instruction of the blacks_."

Mr. Archer, of Virginia, fifteenth Annual Report, says: "The object of
the Society, if I understand it aright, involves no intrusion on
property, _nor even upon prejudice_."

In the speech of James S. Green, Esq. he says: "This Society have ever
disavowed, and they do yet disavow that their object is the emancipation
of slaves. They have no _wish_ if they _could_ to interfere in the
smallest degree with what they deem the most interesting and fearful
subject which can be pressed upon the American public. There is no
people that treat their slaves with so much kindness and so little
cruelty."

In almost every address delivered before the Society, similar
expressions occur. On the propriety of discussing the evils of slavery,
without bitterness and without fear, good men may differ in opinion;
though I think the time is fast coming, when they will all agree. But
by assuming the ground implied in the above remarks, the Colonization
Society have fallen into the habit of glossing over the enormities of
the slave system; at least, it so appears to me. In their constitution
they have pledged themselves not to speak, write, or do anything to
offend the Southerners; and as there is no possible way of making the
truth pleasant to those who do not love it, the Society must perforce
keep the truth out of sight. In many of their publications, I have
thought I discovered a lurking tendency to palliate slavery; or, at
least to make the best of it. They often bring to my mind the words
of Hamlet:

"Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;
Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good."

Thus in an Address delivered March, 1833, we are told, "It ought never
to be forgotten that the slave-trade between Africa and America, had its
origin in a compassionate endeavor to relieve, by the substitution of
negro labor, the toils endured by native Indians. It was the _simulated
form of mercy_ that piloted the first slave-ship across the Atlant