Page:A Chapter on Slavery.djvu/128

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114
A CHAPTER ON SLAVERY.

permitting the exile of Africans from their native shore-— namely, that they or their descendants might return again, and become the great means of giving freedom, civilization, and Christianity to Africa itself.

And this call, we are sure, will be answered; the free men of color in the United States will at length understand the nature of the great work that lies before them — the duty they owe to themselves, to their descendants, and to their African kindred — and will engage heartily in it. Nay, this they are already doing to a considerable extent; the emigration to Liberia is now fast increasing. Accounts from New York, of the date of May 18, 1853, mention that since the beginning of that month, six vessels, carrying 800 colored emigrants, had sailed from the United States to Africa. If, in eighteen days, 800 emigrants had taken their departure, the number in a year must amount, it may be presumed, to some thousands. But this is only the beginning: emigration, we know, increases in a geometrical ratio. The emigration from Europe to America, which once was limited to a few hundreds or thousands, is going on now at the rate of nearly half a million a-year. Ireland alone sends out her hundred thousand yearly. What shall prevent the free blacks of America from emigrating, by and by, at a similar rate? Norwill these need to be transported at the expense of the Colonization Society, as was

    disastrous results of the Government Expedition, in 1841. This fatality, we believe, has a deeper cause than merely the natural effect of climate; for Park stood the climate tolerably well But Divine Providence is guarding Africa. He does not mean it to become another India, subject to the white man's rule, nor to be corrupted by the white man's selfishness and hardness