y man
should be so prejudiced against his fellow-man; but we pray for
the aid of the Almighty to take the scales from their eyes; and
that the Liberator may be one of the instruments in commencing
the work.'[AJ]

'I would ask some of our pretended white friends, and the
members of the American Colonization Society, why they are so
interested in our behalf as to want us to go to Africa? They
tell us that it is our home; that they desire to make a people
of us, which we can never be here; that they want Africa
civilized; and that we are the very persons to do it, as it is
almost impossible for any white person to exist there. I deny
it. Will some of those guardian angels of the people of color
tell me how it is that we, who were born in the same city or
state with themselves, can live any longer in Africa than they?
I consider it the most absurd assertion that any man of common
sense could make, unless it is supposed, as some have already
said, that we are void of understanding. If we had been born on
that continent, the transportation would be another matter; but
as the fact is the reverse, we consider the United States our
home, and not Africa as they wish to make us believe;--and if we
do emigrate, it will be to a place of our own choice.

'I would also mention to the supporters of the Colonization
Society, that if they would spend half the time and money that
they do, in educating the colored population and giving them
lands to cultivate here, and secure to them all the rights and
immunities of freemen, instead of sending them to Africa, it
would be found, in a short time, that they made as good citizens
as the whites. Their traducers would hear of fewer murders,
highway robberies, forgeries, &c. &c. being committed, than they
do at present among some of the white inhabitants of this
country.'[AK]

'Colonization principles, abstractly considered, are
unobjectionable; but the means employed for their propagation,
we think, are altogether objectionable. We are deprived of our
birthright, and pointed by the colonization partisans to another
country as a home. They speak of the prejudices which exist
against us, as an insuperable hindrance to the improvement of
our situation here. We are sickened by the constant reiteration
of "_extraneous mass_," "_African in