Page:A Chapter on Slavery.djvu/129

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EMIGRATION OF THE FREE BLACKS TO LIBERIA.
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necessarily the case with the first settlers: they will transport themselves. Many of the free blacks have means; and those who have not will be helped by those who have. How do the starving Irish contrive to emigrate in such vast numbers? Where there is a will, there will be found a way. In fact, the free blacks are emigrating now as fast, perhaps, as the young African republic can make preparations to. receive them; but every company that goes will prepare the way for more, by a more extensive cultivation of the soil, and by establishing new settlements, — till by and by the flourishing and vigorous colonies will be able to receive their tens or even hundreds of thousands of immigrants yearly, both without danger on the score of support, and without detriment to the cause of liberty and order, but, on the contrary, with benefit to all parties concerned. Emigration on such a scale would soon exhaust the numbers of the free blacks in America — would soon remove them all; for, as before said, they are [but between four and five hundred thousand altogether.

We will conclude this part of our subject by quoting the following eloquent passage from Mr. Freeman's Plea, describing the present condition of the free blacks in the United States, and presenting, at the same time, a well written memorial adopted by the people of color themselves at a meeting held some years since in the Bethel and African churches in the city of Baltimore: —

"Look at their unwelcome reception, wherever they go, among the whites; and consider the fact that their presence is regarded as an evil wherever they are. To some States they are prevented from going, by enact-