John Rankin to Frederick Douglass, January 16, 1857

LETTER FROM JOHN RANKIN.

MR. DOUGLASS: DEAR SIR:—I have seen in your issue of Dec. 12, a long and abusive letter from Benjamin Coates of Philadelphia. Of this man I know nothing, further than he has exhibited himself in his communications to you. So far as I can see, he has very little regard either to truth or accuracy, and, therefore, I assure you that I shall give him no further notice. But as he has brought up the subject of the Colonization Society, I will take occasion to make some statements in relation to it, and to offer some reasons why I oppose its operations.

On the fourth day of February, 1857, I will be sixty four years old; hence I have lived before and since the organization of the Colonization Society, and have had due time to witness the tendencies of its operations.

Before its formation, Abolition societies existed within the free and the slaveholding States, maintaining the doctrine that slavery is both a moral and a political evil, and much was written and published against the sin, cruelty, and danger of the slave system, and many slaves were liberated by the power of truth on the consciences of slaveholders. The following is a copy of a certificate of membership given by the Concord branch of the Kentucky Abolition society:

The Kentucky Abolition Society: To all and singular to whom these presents shall come, greeting:

Whereas numbers of individuals in this State have been, and are still deeply impressed with a sense of Divine Goodness in the LIBERTY we enjoy, and wishing the blessing extended to our fellow beings of all nations and colors—lamenting the lot which stains our government by the toleration of unmerited, involuntary, perpetual, absolute, hereditary SLAVERY among us—a system of oppression pregnant with moral national, and domestic evils; ruinous to national tranquility, honor, and enjoyment, and which every good man wishes to be abolished, could such abolition take place upon a plan which would be honorable to the State, safe to the citizens, and salutary to the slaves—Have, in several neighborhoods, towns, and counties in this State, formed and wish to form societies, to endeavor to bring about a constitutional and legal abolition of slavery in this Commonwealth; and it is to be hoped that many more will be instituted or formed with the same views, on similar principles.

AND WHEREAS, GEO. W. HOPKINS has made application to become a member of the Kentucky Abolition Society, agreeably to the 8th and 9th articles of the Constitution adopted for the government of said association:

Know ye, therefore, that the said GEO. W. HOPKINS is received a member of Concord Auxiliary Branch of said Society; his name

being entered on the 20th day of June, 1819. In testimony whereof, I, SAMUEL DONNELL, {[SEAL.]} President of Concord Auxiliary branch of the Kentucky Abolition Society, have caused the seal of said society to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand this 25th day of Dec., 1821.

SAMUEL DONNELL, Pres't.

GEO. W. HOPKINS, Sec'y.

The above certificate shows the doctrines of the Abolition society of Kentucky, and hence it appears that the sentiment, that slaveholding is in itself a sin, is not new. It was at that time very extensively believed in the slave States, and by a vast majority in the free States.

More than thirty years since, I published at Ripley, Ohio, in the Castigator, a political paper, a series of letters against slavery, to a slaveholding brother, and sent the numbers containing them, to Middlebrook, Virginia. They were openly received and read without exciting any alarm. The publication of those letters was no injury to the Castigator, although it was patronized by all classes of people. The series of letters were soon after published in book form and circulated both in Ohio and Kentucky, and without opposition.

Mr. Edward Cox of Maysville, Kentucky, several times procured a supply of them for his book store, and sold them openly in Kentucky, without injury to his business. No opposition was manifested. In Ohio, the book was approved wherever it was circulated. This book, it is well known, teaches not only the doctrine that slaveholding is a sin in itself, but also the doctrine of immediate emancipation.—The existence of Anti-Slavery societies, and the general approbation of this book, are evidences of what was the public sentiment before the Colonization Society had made any very general impression upon the nation. Abolition sentiments were so extensive in the slaveholding States, that Abolition Societies held their public meetings, and circulated their publications without interruption, and it was but seldom that ever a slaveholder would advocate the rightfulness of slaveholding. In the free States a large majority of the people were Abolitionists.

When the Colonization Society was formed, we, the Abolitionists, thought it was to be a great Abolition society, and with such views we went into it, hoping that it would operate more extensively than our Abolition societies had done. The result was that the Abolition societies ceased the discussion respecting the injustice and wrong of the slave system. The orators of the Colonization Society, with little exception,

instead of depicting the sin, and cruelty of slavery as they should have done, depicted the meanness and degredation of the free colored population; and the impossibility of their elevation in this country, and the wrongfulness of setting the slaves free until they could be removed to Liberia. Such, with some honorable exceptions, have been the teachings of Colonizationists up to the present time. Some of the most eloquent and talented men in the nation have pervaded the whole country, depicting with all the powers of eloquence, the degraded condition of the free negro, and the impossibility of elevating them among white people. I will now quote from Addresses by William V. Pettit, Esq., and Rev. John P. Durbin, D. D. delivered in the House of Representatives, Harrisburgh, Pa. Mr. Pettit, says of the colored people, "they are under a ban of an indelible caste: reduced to the lowest choice of employments, are worse fed, worse clothed, worse housed, worse cared for than any portion of your population. To make them citizens, paradoxical as it may appear, would not render their situation better. They are besides no inconsiderable charge to the public. It is said there is a large proportion of them in our almshouses, prisons and houses of refuge," pages 21 and 22. Dr. Durbin says: "I have seen the colored man under all conditions in this country, from the rice plantations in Georgia and South Carolina, to the cold regions of Maine and Canada. I know his positions and capabilities in America; I know he never can obtain freedom and equally before the law of the legislature, and the still more imperious law of society," page 41.

Now what can be worse for our colored population than the teachings of Pettit and Durbin? And these are a specimen of the mildest teachings by the advocates of Colonization. According to Pettit, our alms-houses and prisons are full of free negroes; they are a public burden, and Dr. Durbin knows they never can be elevated to enjoy equal civil rights! Of course, it is no use to try to do what never can be done; such teaching is an indirect denial of the power of the gospel, to reform men, so as to incline them to permit colored people to enjoy the common rights of humanity. Such teaching is a species of infidelity, wholly unworthy of a professed minister of the gospel.—Every man of common intelligence ought to know, that the colored man's skin produces no more effect upon his flesh and blood and soul, than the color of his coat. There may be just as good flesh, and blood, and soul under a clouded skin, as one that is white. Because one man's skin absorbs all the rays of light, and another's skin throws them all off, therefore, according to Dr. Durbin, they can never live together

on terms of equality. The gospel, with all God's attendant power, can never reconcile the two races over so important a difference, so as to make them live together in love!!! The colored race robs the world of light by absorbing so much of it, and for such an offence the white race can never forgive them. Such is the real ground of controversy between the two races. Now, how perfectly ridiculous it is to suppose that the gospel cannot abolish one of the most infamous prejudices that ever entered the human mind. Such is the teaching of Dr. Durbin and Pettit, and of Colonizationists with some exceptions, ever since the formation of that society. And by such teaching, in less than twenty years, the great mass of the people were brought to oppose the Abolition of slavery unless the freed slaves could be removed from the country, and an intolerable negro prejudice, which is not the strongest obstacle in the way of emancipation, was created. That a great many good and benevolent men were concerned in forming and sustaining the Colonization Society is admitted; but long since most of them have seen their error, and have abandoned that society. I have travelled much as an agent for the American Reform Tract and book society, and, with a few honorable exceptions, I have generally found Colonizationists a cold hearted, negro hating race. They would much rather have three millions and a half of people endure all the horrors of slavery, than have them "free among us."

I have a variety of reasons for opposing the Colonization Society, some of which I will now present:

1st. The very fact that there is a society to colonize a particular class of people, tend to degrade them. The very language of such an institution is that they are not fit to live among us.

2nd. The tendency of such an institution is to grow up into a system of slander. This tendency has strongly marked the Colonization Society from its origin up to the present time.—The colored people have been by colonization orators, greatly misrepresented and slandered. The representation by Pettit, that they are a burden to the State of Pennsylvania, is false. Let the taxes they pay, and the services they render in the various chanels in which labor is needed be duly estimated, and it will be seen that they more than pay the expenses of their own poor, and the court and prison fees of their criminals. That society sometimes suffers by the criminal conduct of some wicked colored people, is admitted; but the same is true of white people. From what I know of the colored people of the free States, I most firmly believe that they are on the whole a benefit to every free State in

which they exist, and I challenge honest investigation on this point.

3d. The Colonization Society presents a temptation to legislatures to pass oppressive laws to make the colored people willing to emigrate to Liberia. The constitution of Indiana, and the black laws of Illinois are samples of such legislation, a constitution and laws that would disgrace even barbarous States. Colonizationists get into legislatures, and move the passage of laws to deprive the people of their rights so as to force them to leave the State.

4th. That Society, in its teachings and operations, tends to discourage all efforts to elevate the free colored people in this country by empressing on the public mind that their elevation here is impossible.

5th. That Society is a safety valve to let off what is dangerous to the slave system. A free colored population among slaves, is very undesirable, and to carry off this population is doubtless a moving design of slaveholders.

6th. It tends to increase the value of slaves by carrying off free laborers, and thus making a greater demand for slave labor, and also by giving greater safety to the slave system.

7th. It propagates the belief that they ought not to be liberated and remain where they are, but must be removed to Liberia, and thus it is a strong obstacle to an entire emancipation of the slaves, and is a salve to ease the consciences of slaveholders.

8th. It has occasioned an unnecessary sacrifice of life. It has been the death of thousands by transporting people from the healthy parts of the United States to a malarious region.—So great is the malaria that a person is liable to the African fever by going on shore a single night.

9th. A large part of those sent to Liberia have been compelled to go. Now, to compel people to go where they are liable to die of a poisonous atmosphere, is indirect murder.— The Society should have given notice to States and individuals that it would carry from States in which oppressive laws existed, to endure emigration, nor from masters who liberate slaves on conidtion of them going to Liberia.

10th. There has been an unnessary expenditure of funds. The American Board with much less expense has evangelized the Sandwich Islands. If the funds expended in colonizing a few thousand persons in Africa had been expended in establishing missionary stations over that benighted country, the larger part of it might now have been rejoicing in the light of life. These are some of the reasons why I oppose the operations of the Colonization Society. It