Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/214

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
172
THE AMERICAN SLAVE TRADE

over 10,000 civilized blacks and 200,000 natives" (uncivilized). This may be considered a friendly estimate.

In 1857 the Government income was $47,556; disbursements, $47,048. Said Thomas: "There is a surplus in the treasury of $500; but truth demands the statement that many of the Government officials, noble and patriotic men, have deferred drawing the full amount of their salaries, small as these are, until the country is more able to pay them."

Of the history of Liberia since that time little need be said. Perhaps as a last item the fact that it stood, hat in hand, before Congress in 1879, begging for the pitiful sum of $25,000, will suffice.

The old society has still life enough to support a secretary and publish an annual report, but its power for creating discontent among the American negroes is well-nigh ended. It was an ape of philanthropy from the day of its organization, and the industrial schools for colored men that are flourishing at the end of the nineteenth century will soon strangle or starve it to death, when its memory will be found worth preserving only as a warning.