r the force of this exposition, the ardent advocates of the
Colonization Society will undoubtedly attempt to evade the ground of
controversy, and lead uncautious minds astray in a labyrinth of
sophistry. But the question is not, whether the climate of Africa is
salubrious, nor whether the mortality among the emigrants has been
excessive, nor whether the colony is in a prosperous condition, nor
whether the transportation of our whole colored population can be
effected in thirty years or three centuries, nor whether any slaves have
been emancipated on condition of banishment; but whether the doctrines
and principles of the Society accord with the doctrines and principles
of the gospel, whether slaveholders are the just proprietors of their
slaves, whether it is not the sacred duty of the nation to abolish the
system of slavery now, and to recognise the people of color as brethren
and countrymen who have been unjustly treated and covered with unmerited
shame. _This is the question--and the only question._

With such a mass of evidence before them, of the pernicious, cruel and
delusive character of the American Colonization Society, I leave the
patriot, the philanthropist and the christian to judge of the fitness of
the following inflated and presumptuous assertions of its
advocates:--'The plan is of heavenly origin, against which the gates of
hell shall never prevail'--'a circle of philanthropy, every segment of
which tells and testifies to the beneficence of the whole'--'addressing
its claims alike to the patriot, and the christian, it being
emphatically the cause of liberty, of humanity, of religion'[A]--'so
full of benevolence and the hallowed impulses of Heaven's own mercy,
that one might, with the propriety of truth, compare its radiant
influences to a rainbow, insufferably bright, spanning the sombre clouds
of human wrong, that have accumulated on the horizon of our country's
prosperity, and beating back, with calm and heavenly power, the
blackening storm that always threatens, in growling thunders, a heavy
retribution'[B]--'that citizen of the United States who lifts a finger
to retard this institution, nay, that man who does not use his
persevering efforts to promote its benevolent object, fails, in our
opinion, to discharge his duty to his God and his
country'[C][1]--'nothing but a distinct knowledge and a calm
consideration of the facts in the case, is wanting to make every man of
common intelligence, common patr