You consider what precautions it may be necessary to take to avoid the danger which might attend a general emancipation of the Negroes.

I shall not now enter into a discussion of this nice question, but reserve it for another work:  yet I must say in a word, that the Negroes will never be our friends, will never be men, until they are possessed of all our rights, until we are upon an equality.  Civil liberty is the boundary between good and evil, order and disorder, happiness and misery, ignorance and knowledge.  If we would make the Negroes worthy of us, we must raise them to our level by giving them this liberty.

Thus, the chief inconvenience you expect will follow the emancipation of the Negroes, may be avoided; that although free, they will remain a distinct species, a distinct and dangerous body.

This objection will vanish when we intermix with them, and boldly efface every distinction.  Unless this is the case, I foresee torrents of blood spilt and the earth disputed between the whites and blacks, as America was between the Europeans and Savages.

Perhaps, and it is no extravagant idea—­perhaps it might be more prudent, more humane, to send the blacks back again to their native country, settle them there, encourage their industry, and assist them to form connections with Europe and America.  The celebrated doctor Fothergill conceived this plan, and the society for the abolition of slavery, at London, have carried it into execution at Sierra Leone.  Time and perseverance, will discover the policy and utility of this settlement.  If it should succeed, the blacks will quit America insensibly, and Sierra Leone become the centre from whence general civilization will spread over all Africa.

Perhaps, sir, you will place these thoughts upon the Negroes with those declamations you are pleased to ridicule:  But what is the epithet of declaimer to me, if I am right, if I make an impression upon my readers, if I cause remorse into the breast of a single slave-holder; in a word, if I contribute to accelerate the general impulse toward liberty.

You disapprove the application of eloquence to this subject; you think nothing can affect it but exertions of cool reason.  What is eloquence but the language of reason and sensibility?  When man is oppressed, he struggles, he complains, he moves our passions, and bears down all opposition.  Such eloquence can perform wonders, and should be employed by those who undertake to plead the cause of the unfortunate who spend their days in continual agony, or he will make no impression.—­I do not conceive how any man can display wit instead of feeling, upon this distracting subject, amuse with an antithesis, instead of forcible reasoning, and only dazzle where he ought to warm.  I have no conception how a sensible and thinking being, can see a fellow-creature tortured and torn to pieces, perhaps his poor wife bathed in tears, with a wretched infant sucking her shriveled breast at his side; I say I have no conception how he can behold such a sight, with indifference; how, unagonized and convulsed with rage and indignation, he can have the barbarity to descend to jesting!  Notwithstanding, your observations upon the Negroes, conclude with a jest.