state, present a better aspect in
relation to the education of this outcast and persecuted people: their
wants, however, are only partially supplied.

The annual increase of the free colored and slave population in the
United States is variously estimated from sixty to seventy-five
thousand. The American Colonization Society proposes the annual removal
of this vast body,--and more, if it be possible,--provided the energies
and patronage of the General Government be enlisted in this expulsive
crusade. Now, suppose the entire transportation effected, let any candid
man decide how extremely difficult, not to say impracticable, it would
be to discipline and instruct such an overwhelming mass of ignorance, or
any considerable portion of it--and how pernicious must be the
consequences to the colony and the natives, if it should not receive
immediate culture!

Secondly. It is neither certain nor probable that, allowing all that is
assumed by colonizationists, the influence of secular and religious
instruction would be sufficient to restrain the selfish desires and
knavish propensities of those whose main object is, not to evangelize
the natives, but to secure, by a summary process, competence and power
for themselves. Indeed, their juxtaposition with the natives would be
eminently calculated to induce the fever of avarice, and to generate the
lust of dominion. It is well known that so eager are the colonists to
acquire a rapid accumulation of wealth, by trafficking their paltry
beads and poisonous rum and tobacco for ivory, camwood and gold dust, it
is with the utmost difficulty any considerable portion of them are
persuaded to cultivate the soil and engage in agricultural pursuits.
Thus we are presented with the disgraceful, if not singular spectacle of
a rivalry in cunning and trickishness between a colony of _soi-disant_
missionaries (really avaricious and unscrupulous foreigners) and the
tribes who are to come under their pious pupilage. If equal dexterity in
trade is not apparent, each party is equally pleased with its successful
attempts at deception, and both renew the fraudulent commerce with fresh
alacrity--the one to gain a new triumph, and the other to retrieve an
old defeat. And this is the mode of colonizationists to evangelize
Africa! and this their mode to suppress the slave trade! and this their
mode to elevate the free people of color! and this their mode to
emancipate the slaves! It combines the folly and ab