The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-05-25
Colonization.

Rev. Mr.. McCree, from the South" after due
notice by hand bills, gave lecture on colonization
at the Methodist Chapel on Friday evening of
last week. We learn that the number in atten.
dance was not large, and that the discourse, as to
manner and matter, was quite indifferent. At
the close, Col. Miller proposed apublic discussion
but the lecturer it is said declined on the ground
that he was passing rapidly through the country.
On Sunday evening" however, our citizens were
treated to another lecture at the Brick church,
This last we attended. The meeting was opened
by prayer offered by Rev. E. Smith. The lee
urer then rose, offering some apology for the state
of his health, and promising that there was moth
ing in colonization unsuted to the sanctty of the
of precepts recognizing our duties to our fellow
men. The audience were then treated to dis
course running through the best part of an hour,
which struck us as being remarkable for nothing
so much as its incoherency, dearth of facts and
exceeding stupidity. There being no other meet
ing in the village at the hour allotted to colonial
ton, very respectable number were in attend
ance. The disappointment must have been sore
y trying to the adherents of the expatriating sys
tenn.
s. Mr. McCree protested with great emphasis that
he abhorred the idea of being pro-Slavery man,
yet no small share of his eloquence was expended
in apologizing for Shareholders, and setting forth
the toerable condition of the southern slaves. He
affirmed without qualification, that the condition
Of the southern slares, generally, IS BETTER than
that of the WORKING CLASS at the North"!! This
is substantially the doctrine of McDuffie, who pre-
dicted in his gubernatorial message that twenty
five years would not elapse before the white la
borers of the North would find themselves the
slaves of New-England masters Mr.. McCree
abhors pro-slaveryism-assu us that there are
few men of the McDuffie school in the south
and yet he unblushingly informs Vermont au-
dience that they are not so we'll off as laboring
freemen as the whipt slaves the plantations of
the South! What pity that our short-sighted
revolutionary fathers had not learned more per-
fectly the beauties of the patriarcha whipping,
fogging, cheating robbing system of the South.
What were our Chittendens, and Warmers, and
Tichenors, and Smiths about in 1898? They
settled it, in the first chapter of our State Consti-
tuition, that all men are by nature equal and free,
and scornfully repudiated slavery at the very
Threshold of our government. o for the return
of those palmy days of iron collars and thumb
screws
Notwithstanding the lecturers public disavowal
of pro-slaveryism, he was not slow to confess,
when pressed in private conversation, that he did
not consider slavery sin, but on the contrary, he
more than once to justify the system
from the Bible itself!
Mr.. McCree told his audience that the coloni-
cation society had almost annihilated the African
save-trade, not dreaming, we suppose that any
of his hearers had read the recent statements of
the Liberia Herald itself, by which the save-trade
IN the vicinity Of the colony is represented as hav-
ing been pushed with unwonted activity for the
last four years