Page:The A. B. C. of Colonization.djvu/33

This page has been validated.

28

gration; exile emigration; pauper emigration, or Government emigration, but they cannot give us a wholesome system of national Colonization. Nothing but what is voluntary is deserving of the name of nationals Loyalty and love of country,—a display of all that is great and glorious in our character will be found to proceed from the result of the voluntary national feelings—and the great work of national Colonization can only be efficiently, economically, and benevolently worked by the public at large. In a truly national affair all can help,—all who wish may work—our nationality. Gentlemen, is of an uncontrollable force when guided and directed by the love of our country, and the desire to serve our fellow creatures. All our best feelings cannot be made to flow through a jail or a workhouse, nor can we confine our ideas of Colonization to the limited and contracted views which at present direct our emigration system. The discerning spirit of the age is alive to the evils of class emigration; our national feeling will not be at rest until the great mass of misery that now presses upon our people be in some degree mitigated and removed.

The removal, however, of indiscriminate masses of the poor may be attended with many evils which would only increase with years. "We may remove a crowd cheaply, but is it wise? is it prudent, and is it economical to colonize solely with a class whose education has been so grievously neglected by the nation? A mass of ignorant and uneducated persons is always a national evil, and if this evil is known and acknowledged when such men have no money, how much more dangerous does that class become when they are possessed of wealth; ignorance and poverty are serious evils, but[ignorance and wealth are much more dangerous. Now, a sound system