ducation, we do believe that our
appeal will not be in vain. For the present ignorant and degraded
condition of many of our brethren in these United States (which
has been a subject of much concern to the Convention) can excite
no astonishment (although used by our enemies to show our
inferiority in the scale of human beings); for, what
opportunities have they possessed for mental cultivation or
improvement? Mere ignorance, however, in a people divested of the
means of acquiring information by books, or an extensive
connection with the world, is no just criterion of their
intellectual incapacity; and it had been actually seen, in
various remarkable instances, that the degradation of the mind
and character, which has been too hastily imputed to a people
kept, as we are, at a distance from those sources of knowledge
which abound in civilized and enlightened communities, has
resulted from no other causes than our unhappy situation and
circumstances.

"True philanthropy disdains to adopt those prejudices against any
people which have no better foundation than accidental
diversities of color, and refuses to determine without
substantial evidence and incontestible fact as the basis of her
judgment. And it is in order to remove these prejudices, which
are the actual causes of our ignorance, that we have appealed to
our friends in support of the contemplated institution.

"The Convention has not been unmindful of the operations of the
American Colonization Society, and it would respectfully suggest
to that august body of learning, talent, and worth, that, in our
humble opinion, strengthened, too, by the opinions of eminent men
in this country, as well as in Europe, that they are pursuing the
direct road to perpetuate slavery, with all its unchristianlike
concomitants, in this boasted land of freedom; and, as citizens
and men whose best blood is sapped to gain popularity for that
institution, we would, in the most feeling manner, beg of them to
desist; or, if we must be sacrificed to their philanthropy, we
would rather die at home. Many of our fathers, and some of us,
have fought and bled for the liberty, independence, and peace
which you now enjoy; and, surely, it would be ungenerous and
unfeeling in you to deny us an humble and quiet grave in