great things, when they get in company with the whites, to ridicule
and make sport of those who are labouring for their good. Poor
ignorant creatures, they do not know that the sole aim and object of
the whites, are only to make fools and slaves of them and put the whip
to them, and make them work to support them and their families. But I
do say, that no man can well be a despiser of Bishop Allen, for his
public labors among us, unless he is a despiser of God and
Righteousness. Thus, we see, my brethren, the two very opposite
positions of those great men, who have written respecting this
"Colonizing Plan," (Mr. Clay and his slave holding party,) men who are
resolved to keep us in eternal wretchedness, are also bent upon
sending us to Liberia. While the Reverend Bishop Allen, and his party,
men who have the fear of God, and the welfare of their brethren at
heart. The Bishop in particular, whose labors for the salvation of his
brethren, are well known to a large part of those, who dwell in the
United States, are completely opposed to the plan--and advise us to
stay where we are. Now we have to determine whose advice we will take
respecting this all important matter, whether we will adhere to Mr.
Clay and his slave-holding party, who have always been our oppressors
and murderers, and who are for colonizing us, more through
apprehension than humanity, or to this godly man who has done so much
for our benefit, together with the advice of all the good and wise
among us and the whites. Will any of us leave our homes and go to
Africa? I hope not.[25] Let them commence their attack upon us as they
did on our brethren in Ohio, driving and beating us from our country,
and my soul for theirs, they will have enough of it. Let no man of us
budge one step, and let slave-holders come to beat us from our
country. America is more our country, than it is the whites--we have
enriched it with our _blood and tears_. The greatest riches in all
America have arisen from our blood and tears:--and will they drive us