e question of establishing mail steamers
between this country and Africa was referred, adverted in their
report to the aid its adoption would afford in the consummation
of the plans of the Colonization Society. On the intimate
relation between the one and the other, it was supposed that a
good part of the required success was dependent. It is something
singular that the colored race--those in reality most interested
in the future destinies of Africa--should be so lightly affected
by the evidences continually being presented in favor of
colonization. He will do a service to this country as well as
Africa who shall do any thing to open the eyes of the colored
race to the advantages of emigration to the fertile and, to them,
congenial shores of Africa."[23]

"AFRICA AND STEAM-SHIPS.--If but a single line of steam-ships is
to be authorized this Session--and the state and prospects of the
finances must counsel frugality and caution,--we think a line to
Africa fairly entitled to the preference. That continent on its
western side is comparatively proximate and accessible; it is
filled with inhabitants who need the articles we can abundantly
fabricate, and it is the ancestral soil of more than three
millions of our people--of a race on whose account we are deeply
debtors to justice and to heaven. That race is more plastic and
less conservative than the Chinese; their soil produces in
spontaneous profusion many articles which are to us comforts and
luxuries, while nearly every thing we produce is in eager demand
among its inhabitants, if they can but find the wherewithal to
pay for them. Instead of being a detriment and a depression to
our own manufacturing and mechanical industry, as the trade
induced by our costly steam-ship lines to Liverpool, Bremen, and
Havre mainly is, all the commerce with Africa which a more
intimate communication with her would secure, would be
advantageous to every department of American labor. Her surplus
products are so diverse from ours, that no collision of interests
between her producers and ours could ever be realized, while
millions' worth of her tropical products which will not endure
the slow and capricious transportation which is now their only
recourse, would come to us in good order by steam-ships, and
richl