e, exists not so much in their want of capacity, as in the absence of
the incitements to virtuous action, which are constantly stimulating the
white man to press onward and upward in the formation of character and
the acquisition of knowledge. There is no position in church or state,
to which the poorest white boy, in the common school, may not aspire.
There is no post of honor, in the gift of his country, that is legally
beyond his reach. But such encouragements to noble effort, do not and
cannot reach the colored man, and he remains with us a depressed and
disheartened being. Persuading him to remain in this hopeless condition,
has been the great error of the abolitionists. They accepted Jefferson's
views in relation to emancipation, but rejected his opinions as to the
necessity of separating the races; and thus overlooked the teachings of
history, that two races, differing so widely as to prevent their
amalgamation by marriage, can never live together, in the same
community, but as superiors and inferiors--the inferior remaining
subordinate to the superior. The encouraging hopes held out to the
colored people, that this law would be inoperative upon them, has led
only to disappointment. Happily, this delusion is nearly at an end; and
some of them are beginning to act on their own judgments. They find
themselves so scattered and peeled, that there is not another half a
million of men in the world, so enlightened, who are accomplishing so
little for their social and moral advancement. They perceive that they
are nothing but branches, wrenched from the great African _banyan_, not
yet planted in genial soil, and affording neither shelter nor food to
the beasts of the forest or the fowls of the air--their roots unfixed in
the earth, and their tender shoots withering as they hang pendent from
their boughs.

That this is no exaggerated picture of the discouragements surrounding
our free colored people, is fully confirmed by the testimony of
impartial witnesses. Chambers, of Edinburgh, who recently made the tour
of the United States, investigated this point very carefully. His
opinions on the subject have been published, and are so discriminating
and truthful, that we must quote the main portion of them. In speaking
of the agitation of the question of slavery, he says:

"For a number of years, as is well known, there has been much angry
discussion on the subject between the Northern and Southern States; and
at times the con