reign climes, men,
women and children, who cannot bring the most satisfactory vouchers,
that their veins are flowing with the purest English blood. Indeed, let
us shut up our ports against our own mariners, who are returning from an
India voyage, and whose cheeks and muscles could not wholly withstand
the influence of the breezes and tropics to which they were exposed. Let
us make every shade of complexion, every difference of stature, and
every contraction of a muscle, a Shibboleth, to detect and cut off a
brother Ephraimite, at the fords of Jordan. Though such a crusade would
turn every man's sword against his fellow; yet, it might establish the
right of precedence to different features, statures and colors, and
oblige some friends of colonization to test the feasibility and equity
of their own scheme.'

If I must become a colonizationist, I insist upon being consistent:
there must be no disagreement between my creed and practice. I must be
able to give a reason why all our tall citizens should not conspire to
remove their more diminutive brethren, and all the corpulent to remove
the lean and lank, and all the strong to remove the weak, and all the
educated to remove the ignorant, and all the rich to remove the poor, as
readily as for the removal of those whose skin is 'not colored like my
own;' for Nature has sinned as culpably in diversifying the size as the
complexion of her progeny, and Fortune in the distribution of her gifts
has been equally fickle. I cannot perceive that I am more excusable in
desiring the banishment of my neighbor because his skin is darker than
mine, than I should be in desiring his banishment because he is a
smaller or feebler man than myself. Surely it would be sinful for a
black man to repine and murmur, and impeach the wisdom and goodness of
God, because he was made with a sable complexion; and dare I be guilty
of such an impeachment, by persecuting him on account of his color? I
dare not: I would as soon deny the existence of my Creator, as quarrel
with the workmanship of his hands. I rejoice that he has made one star
to differ from another star in glory; that he has not given to the sun
the softness and gentleness of the moon, nor to the moon the intensity
and magnificence of the sun; that he presents to the eye every
conceivable shape, and aspect, and color, in the gorgeous and
multifarious productions of Nature; and I do not rejoice less, but
admire and exalt him more, that, notwithst