One of the objections urged with the greatest force against colonization, is, its tendency, as is alleged, to increase the value of slaves by diminishing their numbers. "Jay's Inquiry," 1835, presents this objection at length; and the Report of the "Anti-Slavery Society of Canada," 1853, sums it up in a single proposition thus:
"The first effect of beginning to reduce the number of slaves, by colonization, would be to increase the market value of those left behind, and thereby increase the difficulty of setting them free."
The practical effect of this doctrine, is to discourage all emancipations; to render eternal the bondage of each individual slave, unless all can be liberated; to prevent the benevolence of one master from freeing his slaves, lest his more selfish neighbor should be thereby enriched; and to leave the whole system intact, until its total abolition can be effected. Such philanthropy would leave every individual, of suffering millions, to groan out a miserable existence, because it could not at once effect the deliverance of the whole. This objection to colonization can be founded only in prejudice, or is designed to mislead the ignorant. The advocates of this doctrine do not practice it, or they would not promote the escape of fugitives to Canada.
But abolitionists object not only to the colonization of liberated slaves, as tending to perpetuate slavery; they are equally hostile to the colonization of the free colored people, for the same reason. The "American Reform Tract and Book Society," the organ of the abolitionists, for the publication of anti-slavery works, has issued a Tract on "Colonization," in which this objection is stated as follows:
"The Society perpetuates slavery, by removing the free laborer, and thereby increasing the demand for, and the value of, slave labor."
The projectors and advocates of such views may be good philanthropists, but they are bad philosophers. We have seen that the power of American slavery lies in the demand for its products; and that the whole country, North of the sugar and cotton States, is actively employed in the production of provisions for the support of the planter and his slaves, and in consuming the products of slave labor. This is the constant vocation of the whites. And how is it with the blacks? Are they competing with the slaves, in the cultivation of sugar and cotton, or are they also supporting the system, by consuming its products? The latitudes in which they reside, and the pursuits in which they are engaged, will answer this question.