The weekly Anglo-African. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1859-1861, 1860-03-03

their removal to Africa Ill noble and gen.
erous manner. Mr.. John Stevens, of
Talbot comfy, gave funds to build
ship of 500 tons to carry emigrants to Lii
IBERIA. Twice in the year she bears these
sons and daughters to their fatherland
without cost In Louisiana, Mr.. McDon-
ough provided for the emancipation Of his
slaves, and in most ample manner for
their future condition. Through the South
was the same feeling Maryland, Virginia
and Kentucky were on the very point of
deciding upon the entire emancipation of
the slave population.
Whence this change? Why do slave
holders conventions, and our halls of leg
islation resound with these violent and ex-
IRENE propositions Some men have gone
perfectly wild They are ready to revive
the slave trade, secede, or anything that
could be proposed.
This is not from any change in our peo-
pie. They are as humane as before; anx-
ious to do their duty to their slaves; not
DESTROYS of increasing their numbers. But
mad, unreasonable men, as emssaries,
have sought to operate upon our slaves.
Hence alarm and excitement and irritation
which years cannot allay. Witness the
Southampton instruction under Nat Tur-
ner, in or about 1881. Then the foolish
and wicked project of John Brown.
The reactionary measures are proposals
to open the slave trade, expel the free
blacks, or make slaves of them, &c. Ar
kansas has driven them out. The same
project is before our legislature. These
great and gross provocations to retaliate on
ly iniure the free colored man, and rivet
the chains upon the slave.
Because Abolitionists have tempered
with and carried off slaves, shall we do acts
of injustice to harmless, peaceable and or
derby free blacks2 Because man is in
suited by foreign foe, shall he come home
and abuse his neighbors? Shall we act
like the drunkard who, when turned away
from the tavern, goes home, turns his wife
out of bed, seizes his little child, dashes
out its brains, and gluts his vengeance
upon the rest of his family2
For the South, for Maryland, we say no
1t is revolving to justice, shocking to hu-
manity, and will be an eternal disgrace to
any people. If done to make political cap
ital, it should deservedly kill the party.
If to open the slave trade, or prepare the
way for it, the curse of God and the age
will fall upon it.
These free people, our fathers and moth
ers, uncles and aupts, and brothers and sis
tiers, citizens of Maryland, emancipated in
good faith years past. Shall we enslave
them? Shall we be guilty of the crime,
before high heaven, of breaking their CO.
venants, and compelling into bondage men
and women, who by fidelity to their mas
tiers earned their liberty2 Shall we put
into the treasury the proceeds of their
houses, and lands, and churches, and lib
erty-to educate our children2 Just as
we'll put the mark of Cain upon boy ed
ucated from such funds.
The thing is monstrous. Maryland can
not be guilty of such crime. 1t would
be dark day when we become oppressors
and robbers. AS citizens, we would hide
our faces in shame, if such an enormity
was ever sanctioned by law. Our honor
would be gone, the finger of scorn and con-
tempt would point at us from the whole
world The gallantry and honor, the in
tegrity and morality, the humanity and
everything that adorns our noble State,
would be buried in shame.
By the love we have for the place of
our birth, our home, the inheritance of our
cbildren-by the regard which we have
for the favor of God our Maker, by the re-
gard which we have for the religion of
Jesus Christ our Savior, by the blessings
which his gospel has conferred upon us, by
the principles of that Bible in which centre
all our hopes for future blessedness-we
dare not sit still and sanction such an out
rage as would be perpetuated by it upon
so many thousand souls.
Wise and humane men of all parties see
difficulties in this whole negro question.
We may find it difficult to support our
poor, shall we therefore cut off their heads
and bury them Long ago God made them
a large nation of people in Africa, gave
them country, one of the great divisions
of the earth, most central, prolific in the
richest products of earth; population at
least three times greater than the United
States. 1t is of that people among us, that
some imagine that God had no higher de-
sign than to make them to be slaves for us
inperpetuity. Such men are like the child
who thought the ocean was only made for
him to throw pebbles into.
As people, they are the subject of pro-
phecy and history as much as the Jew or
Romanist ETHIOPIA stretches out her hands
unto the Lord, to receive the blessings of
his salvation and the liberty wherewith he
makes his people free. The Jew reject
ing Jesus looks in vain for his Messiah,
while the man of sin at Rome, who has for
ages oppressed the nations, trembles at the
handwriting on the wall, feeling in his
waning power that the time of his end is
at hand. The whole world cannot make
the sun rise or set an hour before his ap-
pointed time. When he causes light no
one can make darkness; when he brings to
the birth will he not bring forth
God is not dependent upon his creatures,
nor will he regard their rage against his
plans any more than the ocean did the