the danger of expelling the people of color from their native land, and to convince them of the necessity of abandoning a dangerous and chimerical, as well as unchristian and antirepublican association. For these efforts I have hitherto suffered reproach and persecution, must expect to suffer, and am willing to suffer to the end.*

The Dangers of the Lation.

Fifty-three years ago, the Fourth of July was a proud day for our country. It clearly and accurately defined the rights of man; it made no vulgar alterations in the established usages of society; it presented a revelation adapted to the common sense of mankind; it vindicated the omnipotence of public opinion over the machinery of kingly government; it shook, as with the voice of a great earthquake, thrones which were seemingly propped up with Atlantean pillars; it gave an impulse to the heart of the world, which yet thrills to its extremities.

It may be profitable to inquire, whether the piety which founded, and the patriotism which achieved our liberties, remain unimpaired in principle, undiminished in devotion. Possibly our Samson is sleeping in the lap of Delilah, with

* Extracted from a pamphlet, published in 1832, entitled THOUGHTS ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION: or an Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society. Together with the Resolutions, Addresses and Remonstrances of the Free People of Color. By WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.'

his locks shorn and his strength departed. Possibly his enemies have put out his eyes, and bound him with fetters of brass, and compelled him to grind in the prison-house; and if, in his rage and blindness, he find the pillars of the fabric, woe to those for whose sport he is led forth!

For many years, the true friends of their country have witnessed the return of this great jubilee with a terror, that no consolation could remove, and with a grief, that no flattery could assuage. They have seen, that, instead of being distinguished for rationality of feeling and purity of purpose, it has exhibited the perversion of reason and the madness of intemperance. Patriotism has degenerated into mere animal indulgence; or, rather, into the most offensive personalities. Liberty has gone hand in hand with licentiousness— her gait unsteady, her face bloated, her robe bedraggled in the dust. It seems as if men had agreed, by common consent, that an act, which, on any other day, would impeach a fair reputation, on this, should help enlarge that reputation. The love of country has been tested by the exact number of libations poured forth, the most guns fired, the greatest number of toasts swallowed, and the loudest professions of loyalty to the Union, uttered over the wine-cup.

Indeed, so dear is Liberty to many, that they cannot make too free with her charms: they owe her so much, that they owe the Most High nothing. It would shock their sensibility, and tarnish their reputation as patriots, to be caught at a religious celebration of our national anniversary. The day, they argue, should be properly appreciated; and, unless a man gets gloriously inebriated, either at home or in the streets, at his own or a public table, in digesting his own good sayings or those of others-unless he declaims roundly in praise of freedom, and drinks perdition to tyrants-it shows that he is either a monarchist or a bigot.

But it is not the direct, palpable, and widely extensive mis

chief to public morals, which alone makes the Fourth of July the worst and most disastrous day in the whole three hundred and sixty-five. There is, if possible, a corruption more deep-an intoxication more fascinating and deadly. It is that torrent of flattery, artfully sweetened and spiced, which is poured out for the thirsty multitude to swallow; it is that thriftless prodigality of praise, that presumptuous defiance of danger, that treacherous assurance of security, that impudent assumption of ignorance, that pompous declamation of vanity, that lying attestation of falsehood, from the lips of tumid orators, which are poisoning our life-blood.

We are a vain people, and our love of praise is inordinate. We imagine, and are annually taught to believe, that the republic is immortal; that its flight, like a strong angel's, has been perpetually upward, till it has soared above the impurities of earth, and beyond the remotest star; and, having attained perfection, is forever out of the reach of circumstance and change. An earthquake may rock all Europe, and ingulph empires at a stroke; but it cannot raise an inch of republican territory, nor disturb the composure of a platter on our shelves. The ocean may gather up its forces for a second deluge, and overtop the tallest mountains; but our ark will float securely when the world is drowned. The storm may thicken around us; but a smile from the goddess of Liberty will disperse the gloom, and build a rainbow wherever she turns her eye. We shall remain 'till the heav

ens be no more.'

It is this fatal delusion, which so terrifies men of reflection and foresight; which makes the Christian shudder at the prospect before us, and the Patriot weep in despair; which, unless the mercy of God interpose, seals the doom of our country.

When a people become so infatuated as to deny the exist ence, and to doubt the possibility of danger; when they

hear the language of reproof with angry emotions, and ridicule the remonstrances of wisdom as the croakings of imbecility; when they imagine every virtue to dwell in mere liberty, and are content to take the shadow for the substance, the name for the object, the promise for the possession, there is no extreme of folly into which they cannot be led, no vice which they will not patronise, no error which they will not adopt, no pitfall into which they will not stumble.

At such a crisis, the reason of men becomes more obtuse than animal instinct. The frugal and industrious ant does not wait till the cold winds of winter stiffen her legs, before she stores her provisions; the bird of passage migrates when autumn expires; the deer needs only to hear the bark of the hounds, and, without waiting for their approach, he tosses back his broad antlers, and dashes onward with the speed of an arrow. But a nation of infatuated freemen take no warning from history; they learn nothing from experience. To their vision, the signs of the times are always ominous of good. Like the inhabitants of Jerusalem, they must hear the avenger thundering at their gates, and see their destiny prefigured by dreadful omens in the heavens, before they will acknowledge that the judgments of God are sure. They must tread on the cinders of a national coflnagration, and count the number of smoking ruins, before they will believe in the combustibleness of the republic.

'Our fate,' says a distinguished essayist, is not foretold by signs and wonders: the meteors do not indeed glare in the form of types, and print it legibly in the sky: but our warning is as distinct, and almost as awful, as if it were announced in thunder by the concussion of all the elements.'

I know that this may be viewed as the phantasm of a disordered imagination. I know, too, it is easy to persuade ourselves that we shall escape those maladies, which have

destroyed other nations. But, how closely soever a republic may resemble the human body in its liability to disease and death, the instance is not on record, where a people expired on account of excessive watchfulness over their own health, or of any premature apprehension of decay; and there is no national epitaph which says,' they were well, they wished to be better, they took physic, and died.'

Is it

I speak not as a partisan or an opponent of any man or measures, when I say, that our politics are rotten to the core. We boast of our freedom, who go shackled to the polls, year after year, by tens, and hundreds, and thousands! We talk of free agency, who are the veriest machines-the merest automata―in the hands of unprincipled jugglers! We prate of integrity, and virtue, and independence, who sell our birthright for office, and who, nine times in ten, do not get Esau's bargain-no, not even a mess of pottage! republicanism to say, that the majority can do no wrong? Then I am not a republican. Is it aristocracy to say, that the people sometimes shamefully abuse their high trust? Then I am an aristocrat. Rely upon it; the republic does not bear a charmed life: our prescriptions, administered through the medium of the ballot-box-the mouth of the political body-may kill or cure, according to the nature of the disease, and our wisdom in applying the remedy. It is possible that a people may bear the title of freemen, who execute the work of slaves. To the dullest observer of the signs of the times, it must be apparent, that we are rapidly approximating to this condition. Never were our boasts of liberty so inflated as at this moment-never were they greater mockeries. We are governed, not by our sober judgments, but by our passions: we are led by our ears, not by our understandings.

Wherein do we differ from the ancient Romans? What shall save us from their fate?