And, now, will any one say, that the fathers of the Revolution ever intended to declare the negro the equal of the white man, in the sense that he was entitled to an equality of political privileges under the constitution of the United States!
[2] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370.
[3] Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. page 370, Note.
[4] That Mr. Jefferson was considered as having no settled plans or views in relation to the disposal of the blacks, and that he was disinclined to risk the disturbance of the harmony of the country for the sake of the negro, appears evident from the opinions entertained of him and his schemes by John Quincy Adams. After speaking of the zeal of Mr. Jefferson, and the strong manner in which, at times, he had spoken against slavery, Mr. Adams says: "But Jefferson had not the spirit of martyrdom. He would have introduced a flaming denunciation of slavery into the Declaration of Independence, but the discretion of his colleagues struck it out. He did insert a most eloquent and impassioned argument against it in his Notes on Virginia; but, on that very account, the book was published almost against his will. He projected a plan of general emancipation, in his revision of the Virginia laws, but finally presented a plan leaving slavery precisely where it was; and, in his Memoir, he leaves a posthumous warning to the planters that they must, at no distant day, emancipate their slaves, or that worse will follow; but he withheld the publication of his prophecy till he should himself be in the grave."--_Life of J. Q. Adams, page 177, 178._
[5] See a more extended detail of the proceedings in relation to this subject, both in England and the colonies, in the Appendix.
Dismal condition of Africa--Hopes of Wilberforce disappointed--Organization of the American Colonization Society--Its necessity, objects, and policy--Public sentiment in its favor--Opposition developes itself--Wm. Lloyd Garrison, James G. Birney, Gerrit Smith--Effects of opposition--Stimulants to Slavery--Exports of Cotton--England sustaining American Slavery--Failure of the Niger Expedition--Strength of Slavery--Political action--Its failure--Its fruits.
ANOTHER question, "How shall the slave trade be suppressed?" began to be agitated near the close of the last century. The moral desolation existing in Africa, was without a parallel among the nations of the earth. When the last of our Northern States had freed its slaves, not a single Christian Church had been successfully established in Africa, and the slave trade was still legalized to the citizens of every Christian nation. Even its subsequent prohibition, by the United States and England, had no tendency to check the traffic, nor ameliorate the condition of the African. The other Europeon powers, having now the monopoly of the trade, continued to prosecute it with a vigor it never felt before. The institution of slavery, while lessened in the United States, where it had not yet been made profitable, was rapidly acquiring an unprecedented enlargement in Cuba and Brazil, where its profitable character had been more fully realized. How shall the slave trade be annihilated, slavery extension prevented, and Africa receive a Christian civilization? were questions that agitated the bosom of many a philanthropist, long after Wilberforce had achieved his triumphs. It was found, that the passage of laws prohibiting the slave trade, and the extermination of that traffic, were two distinct things--the one not necessarily following the other. The success of Wilberforce with the British Parliament, only increased the necessity for additional philanthropic efforts; and a quarter of a century afterwards found the evil vastly increased which he imagined was wholly destroyed.