er
turbulent or useless, no longer aliens and wanderers from Africa--but
they are complimented as intelligent, patriotic citizens from whom much
is expected, and who have property, home and country at stake! Ay, and
richly do they merit this compliment.

A respectable colored gentleman in the city of New-York, referring to
this famous Proclamation, makes the following brief comment: 'When we
could be of any use to the army, we possessed all the cardinal virtues;
but now that time has passed, we forsooth are the most miserable,
worthless beings the Lord in his wise judgment ever sent to curse the
rulers of this troublesome world! I feel an anathema rising from my
heart, but I have suppressed it.'

How black is the ingratitude, how pitiful the hypocrisy, manifested in
our conduct as a people, toward our colored population! Every cheek
should wear the blush of shame--every head be bowed in self-abasement!

From the organization of the American Colonization Society, down to the
present time, the free people of color have publicly and repeatedly
expressed their opposition to it. They indignantly reject every overture
for their expatriation. It has been industriously circulated by the
advocates of colonization, that I have caused this hostility to the
African scheme in the bosoms of the blacks; and that, until the
Liberator was established, they were friendly to it. This story is
founded upon sheer ignorance. It is my solemn conviction that I have not
proselyted a dozen individuals; for the very conclusive reason that no
conversions were necessary. Their sentiments were familiar to me long
before they knew my own. My opponents abundantly overrate my influence,
in acknowledging that I have overthrown, in a single year, the
concentrated energies of the mightiest men in the land, and the
perpetual labors of fifteen years. They shall not make me vain. Such a
concession affords substantial evidence of perverted strength and
misapplied exertion.

If the people of color were instantly to signify their willingness to
emigrate, my hostility to the American Colonization Society would
scarcely abate one jot: for their assent could never justify the
principles and doctrines propagated by the Society. Those principles and
doctrines have been shown, I trust, to be corrupt, selfish,
proscriptive, opposed to the genius of republicanism and to the spirit
of christianity.

The first public demonstration of hostility to the colonization s