civilized habits. These form an important and valuable accession to our population. You know, sir, that our population is often set down at 15,000 persons; but this by no means does us justice. That is very likely our emigrant population: but for every American citizen, you may safely put down another, either native or Congo, who has been trained in our families or schools, and who form, in the aggregate, an equal population to our own. They are indeed the lower crust of our civilized population; but we should have the full benefit of their enumeration, and we should be thus reckoned fully at 30,000 civilized people.
Let me now advert briefly to one more evidence of our influence among the natives, and the regenerating power of our people and polity: I refer now to the civil and political influence of our government upon the natives around us, especially as it respects their rights, freedom, and civil elevation.
You know, sir, that slavery is indigenous to the soil of Africa. Indeed, sir, it is indigenous to all soils on the globe, and is the cause of misery and distress wherever it exists. It is thus in Africa. But the hopes of freedom, the aspiration for liberty, work as strongly in the bosom of the native African as in any other man on the globe. The servile population of our surrounding tribes, even to the far interior, know where safety can be found from the oppressor. Hence, this class, when they find the yoke intolerable, seek the protection of our flag. Runaway boys and fugitive slaves come to us from the Bassas, the Queahs, the Veys, the Deys, and especially the Pessahs,
