The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1851-04-17

free nbUt fbr the slaves 7 6 per
cent. In w. S1n9es number 10000
more than th>rfsl Arkansas, the ratio
Of slave increase \ ~ ikst Zen years has been
1875 per cent Of free, SO per cent.
In view of these facts, 1t is not to be supposed
that Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
and Missouri, viii be slaveholdng States much
longer than twenty live years to come; and it is
probable that States which now contain one-hslf
the slave population will be free before the year
1900. The whole Of the slave population at that
time, unless slavery be sooner abolished, will be
concentrated to the amount of ten or eleven mil
lions within States which now contain free pop
ulation Of only three millions the increase OF
which is destined to proceed in diminished ra-
ito, while the ratio of the slave increase cannot be
expected TO fall off in any considerable degree.
Indeed, we may fairly presume from the facts
above stated and from the tendency of slave-labor
to drive out the free sborer, that by the close Of
the present century, if slavery continue, slave
population Of ten millions will be collected with
in section of country containing numerically
inferior free population.
Within the last century, slaves have steadily
improved in intelligence. Have the causes OF
this improvement exhausted themselves, or are
they not working with increased power and
through additional channels2
The next fifty years will witness changes in
their character which, considered in connec-
ton with their great numerical force must
awaken our gloomiest apprehensions, should the
hand Of power continue heavy upon them. But,
should the South pass safely through the increas-
ing perils of the next fifty years, can 1t then
dream of the possibility Of ten millions of men,
who have had the benefit of white instruction and
free example so many generations, submitting
much longer to the domination Of less physical
force than their own2
And what then will be the condition Of the
savehOlding section in other respects Recollect,
Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, will
not be embraced within it. Cursed with re-
dundant interpolation, its soil exhausted by
kets of the world by production now coming into
notice, and which can be grown everywhere by free
labor, with diminished returns from it's crops, to
be preyed upon by an increasing surplus Of labor
ers, who must eat or be decimated, with no more
slave territory to bring temporary reprisyestke
Shareholders would be compelled to emancipate
their slaves, or e1patrate themselves. Let the
alarmist paint the gloomiest pictures of the con-
sequences Of Emancipation his fancy can draw,
q far deeper gloom hangs about the tremendous
realities of the slavery that shall exist in the
year 1900, if it be continued so long
But the Law Of Human Progress, illustrated
and demonstrated by the history of all nations,
ancient and modern, law founded upon the
fundamental principles Of Mans Nature and
Gods Government makes Perpetual Slavery an
impossibiity.
What is there in African Colonization to pre-
vent these impending evils We can see moth
ing If it can do any good by promoting the
colonization and civilization Of Africa let it work
for that end No one will rejoice more than we
at its success If it can demonstrate on a new
theatre the capacity of the colored man for high
civilization, it shall have our thanks the demon
stration will tell against his enslavement in this
country. Had it confined itself to these objects
and oontented itself simply with aiding such en-
terprising people of color as wished to better
their fortunes, it would have excited no opposi-
tion in any quarter. But when it asserted that
the two races could not dwell in one country, ex-
cept in the relation of master and slave to each
other, when it insisted peremptorily on the policy
of separating them, and on its capacity to accom-
pish this result, when it urged the utter hope
lessness and unimprovableness Of the free colored
people in this country, when it countenanced
proscriptive and degrading legislation against
them, with view to make their condition here
40 desperate that exile would be preferable to it,
when it undertook to apologize for Slavery on
the ground of necessity, assumed to be the only
true remedy for its evils, and opposed Emancpa-
tion upon the Soil, it arrayed against it many of
the best friends Of Freedom. They saw that it
was a stumbling block in the way of the colored
mans improvement, was calculated to mislead the
philanthropy Of the country, and waste its ener
gies upon an impracticable scheme.
Take the following statement Of what African
Colonization has done since its origin, copied
from Journal which sustsins it's policy.
"TuE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SocIETy-The
total receipts of the American Colonization Soci-
ETY., from the organization In 1917 to December
81 1850, were S9l3,636S3. The amount ex-
pended by State societies, during their independ-
ent action WAS about 1912, OOO-thus making a
total Of 81 ,225 626 49, which represents the cost
Of colonization since the organization Of the So
ciety.
During the existence Of the society 1t has sent
q 4 1 a 10 A ~; foil