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free colored men in america to africa.

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letters and training, filled with, feverish greed, with hearts utterly alien from moral good and human well-being, and only regarding Africa as a convenient gold-field from which to extract emolument and treasure to carry off to foreign quarters.

Such men would only reproduce the worst evils of the last three sad centuries of Africa's history; and quickly and inevitably so soil their character that the just imputation would be fastened upon them of that malignant lie which has recently been spread abroad through Europe and America against us: that is, of complicity with the slave trade."^[1]

↑ Nothing can be more judicious than the following words of Commander Foote:—"Let then the black man be judged fairly, and not presumed to have become all at once and by miracle, of a higher order than old historic nations, through many generations of whom the political organization of the world has been slowly developing itself. There will be among them men who are covetous, or men who are tyrannical, or men who would sacrifice public interests, or any others to their own; men who would now go into the slave trade if they could, or rob hen roosts, or intrigue for office, or pick pockets, rather than trouble their heads or their hands with more honorable occupations. It should be remembered by visitors that such things will be found in Liberia; not because men are black, but because men are men?—Africa and the American Flag, p. 206.

It is most encouraging to find ever and anon a writer who, in speaking of colored men, avoids the exaggeration of them either into demi-gods or monkeys. Even Commander Foote well nigh loses his balance, on the same page whence the above just sentence is taken. In the paragraph which immediately follows this extract, he gives expression to opinions sweepingly disparaging to the negro race, and not of certain historical accuracy. Commander Foote says:—"No negro has done anything to lighten or brighten the links of human policy." Such a broad assertion implies that the writer has cleared up all the mysteries of past history; but upon the point, that is, "the relation of Egypt to the negro race," though still a disputed question—yet, with such authorities on our

[p235-1] Nothing can be more judicious than the following words of Commander Foote:—"Let then the black man be judged fairly, and not presumed to have become all at once and by miracle, of a higher order than old historic nations, through many generations of whom the political organization of the world has been slowly developing itself. There will be among them men who are covetous, or men who are tyrannical, or men who would sacrifice public interests, or any others to their own; men who would now go into the slave trade if they could, or rob hen roosts, or intrigue for office, or pick pockets, rather than trouble their heads or their hands with more honorable occupations. It should be remembered by visitors that such things will be found in Liberia; not because men are black, but because men are men?—Africa and the American Flag, p. 206.

It is most encouraging to find ever and anon a writer who, in speaking of colored men, avoids the exaggeration of them either into demi-gods or monkeys. Even Commander Foote well nigh loses his balance, on the same page whence the above just sentence is taken. In the paragraph which immediately follows this extract, he gives expression to opinions sweepingly disparaging to the negro race, and not of certain historical accuracy. Commander Foote says:—"No negro has done anything to lighten or brighten the links of human policy." Such a broad assertion implies that the writer has cleared up all the mysteries of past history; but upon the point, that is, "the relation of Egypt to the negro race," though still a disputed question—yet, with such authorities on our

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