The North Star (Rochester)/1848/01/14/Liberian Declaration of Independence

☞ On the outside of this week's paper will be found a declaration proclaiming the republic of Liberia independent of the American Colonization Society. The document shows the determination of the colonists to occupy a highly commendable position among the nations of the earth. We have no sympathy with the motives which induced the purchase of the colony; and we have little with the despondency that drove our brethren from our shores. The bitter fruits of their yielding to the infernal spirit of expatriation in the first place is now in full bloom with us. Fifty thousand of our fellow courtrymen, now nominally free, in the State of Virginia, are on the point of being driven from their hearths and homes before the bayonets of these same American Christians; which, had we resisted in the first instance, might have forever prevented anything like this last effort to colonize us.

We must feel this land to be our home, and make our white fellow countrymen feel the same. If we fail in this, our case is hopeless; but in this we cannot fail.