presence of the superior, and by its power; the inability of a people
to care for or to elevate themselves, does not seem a precisely good
argument for sending them to a new land, and to a naked dependence
on their own resources; the invincible prejudice of the white does
not at once give a very potent, at least a very just reason why
the black should be expatriated.

We will not assert it, but there is good cause to suspect that
while in the minds of perhaps the majority of those who for a few
years past have been active supporters of the colonization scheme,
the good of the black and of Africa have been prominent motives,
yet it had its birth and its chief support in the way in which it
bore upon the interests of slavery. The presence of free blacks
among slaves is an element of weakness in the system, and though
it may not have been openly avowed, yet there is too much reason to
suspect that colonization was intended vastly more for them than
for freed slaves. It was a scheme to strengthen slavery, and it
ceased to elicit sympathy or generous support so soon as it appeared
to give no promise of that result.

Asking the reasons for colonization, we apprehend that when the
argument is pressed, it will be found to terminate, if on any thing
substantial, upon the benefit which it will confer on the black
race. Without volunteering the details of that argument, which,
indeed, we do not profess to see clearly, we may say that there
is at least a preliminary question, whether or not that end cannot
be better attained without colonization than with it? Is it not
possible better to elevate and to do good to the colored race in
this than in any other land to which they may be sent?