they rushed on, determined to accomplish their object at all risks, and without regard to consequences, — pouring forth violent words and imprecations, making wild gesticulations, and striking right and left, thinking, by these means, to knock off the poor slaves' chains. But, alas! the effect of all this violence was found, in the end, only to rivet those chains the tighter, to make the heavy burden heavier, and in fact, actually to check the course of emancipation where it had already begun. In the meantime, an individual, or a few individuals, humble, good men, not setting out in their own strength, not satisfied that they knew all and could accomplish all, but looking up trembling to the Lord on high, and praying to be guided by His Wisdom and led by His hand, gently and quietly commenced an undertaking which was plainly most unobjectionable both in its end and in its proposed means; attacking nothing, assaulting no one, proposing a plan which seemed to them called for at the time, and calculated to do great good, yet forcing no one, but leaving all free to avail themselves of its benefits or not, as they chose. The Constitution of the American Colonization Society simply proposed "to promote and execute a plan for colonizing, with their own consent, the free people of color, in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall deem expedient." That is the whole professed object: nothing is said about slaves, nothing about the slave-trade, nothing about civilizing Africa: it confined itself to a simple and obvious duty, that of affording the free people of color, who were seen to be in a depressed and degraded state, an opportunity to become men — to be-
