his republic, rising one million free people of
color, the greater part of whom are unable to read even the sacred
scriptures. Is not their ignorant and degraded situation worthy of the
consideration of those enlightened and christian individuals, whose zeal
for the cause of the African race has induced them to attempt the
establishment of a republican form of government amid the burning sands
of Liberia, and the evangelizing of the millions of the Mahometans and
pagans that inhabit the interior of that extensive country?

We are constrained to believe that the welfare of the people of color,
to say the least, is but a secondary consideration with those engaged in
the colonization project. Or why should we be requested to move to
Africa, and thus separated from all we hold dear in a moral point of
view, before their christian benevolence can be exercised in our behalf?
Surely there is no country of which we have any knowledge, that offers
greater facilities for the improvement of the unlearned; or where
benevolent and philanthropic individuals can find a people, whose
situation has greater claims on their christian sympathies, than the
people of color. But whilst we behold a settled determination on the
part of the American Colonization Society to remove us to Liberia,
without using any means to better our condition at home, we are
compelled to look with fearful diffidence on every measure of that
institution. At a meeting held on the 7th inst. in this borough, the
people of color were politely invited to attend, the object of which was
to induce the most respectable part of them to emigrate. The meeting was
addressed by several reverend gentlemen, and very flattering accounts
given on the authority of letters and statements said to have been
received from individuals of unquestionable veracity. But we beg leave
to say, that those statements differ so widely from letters that we have
seen of recent date from the colony, in regard to the condition and
circumstances of the colonists, that we are compelled in truth to say
that we cannot reconcile such contradictory statements, and are
therefore inclined to doubt the former, as they appear to have been
prepared to present to the public, for the purpose of enlisting the
feelings of our white friends into the measure, and of inducing the
enterprising part of the colored community to emigrate at their own
expense. That we are in this country a degraded people, we are truly
sen