et I think that every
man ought to be protected in his property, and as the laws of
our country have decreed that negroes are property, every person
that holds a slave, according to these laws, ought to be
protected.'--['A new and interesting View of Slavery.' By
Humanitas, a colonization advocate. Baltimore, 1820.]

'We are made to disregard this description of _property_, and to
touch without reserve the _rights_ of our
neighbors.'--[Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the
New-Jersey Colonization Society.]

Thus the American Colonization Society shamelessly surrenders the claims
of justice, and leaves the enemies of oppression weaponless! Hence it
rejects the proposition, that _man cannot hold property in man_; and we
are called upon to prove that which is self-evident. No accidental
differences of condition or complexion--no vicissitudes of fortune--no
reprisal or purchase or inheritance, can justly make one individual the
slave of another. When God created man, he gave him dominion over the
fowls of the air and the beasts of the field; but not over his fellow
man. 'All men are born free and equal,' and are 'made of one blood.'
Shall we look to wealth as giving one a title to the labor and freedom
of another? Wealth is the creature of circumstances, and not an
arbitrary law of nature. It takes to itself wings, and flies away; and
he who is an opulent tyrant to-day, may on this principle be an
impoverished slave to-morrow. Does physical strength make valid this
claim? This, too, is evanescent: sickness and age would ultimately
degrade the most muscular tyrants to servitude; and mankind would be
composed of but two parties--the strong and the weak. Can high birth
annul the rights of the lower classes? There is no difference at their
birth, between the children of the beggar and those of the king. 'We
brought nothing into this world,' says an inspired apostle, 'and it is
certain we can carry nothing out.'

Man is created a rational being; and therefore he is a subject of moral
government, and accountable. Being rational and accountable, he is bound
to improve his mind and intellect. With this design, his Creator has
outstretched the heavens, and set the sun in his course, and hung out
the burning jewels of the sky, and spread abroad the green earth, and
poured out the seas, that he might steadily progress in knowledge.

The slaves are men; they were born, then, as free as