The Conflict with Slavery, Part 1, from Volume VII, - The Works of Whittier: the Conflict with Slavery, Politics - and Reform, the Inner Life and Criticism by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 14 of 161 (08%)
page 14 of 161 (08%)
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"The slave-holder, who is in danger of having his slaves contaminated by their free friends of color, will not only be relieved from this danger, but the value of his slave will be enhanced." 5. It denies the power of Christian love to overcome an unholy prejudice against a portion of our fellow-creatures. Proof. "The managers consider it clear that causes exist and are operating to prevent their (the blacks) improvement and elevation to any considerable extent as a class, in this country, which are fixed, not only beyond the control of the friends of humanity, but of any human power. Christianity will not do for them here what it will do for them in Africa. This is not the fault of the colored man, nor Christianity; but an ordination of Providence, and no more to be changed than the laws of Nature!"--[Last Annual Report of the American Colonization Society.] "The habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society--prejudices which neither refinement, nor argument, nor education, nor religion itself, can subdue--mark the people of color, whether bond or free, as the subjects of a degradation inevitable and incurable. The African in this country belongs by birth to the very lowest station in society, and from that station he can never rise, be his talents, his enterprise, his virtues what they may. . . . They constitute a class by themselves, a class out of which no individual can be elevated, and below which none can be depressed." "Is it not wise, then, for the free people of color and their friends to admit, what cannot reasonably be doubted, that the people of color must, in this country, remain for ages, probably forever, a separate and |
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