Page:A Chapter on Slavery.djvu/98

 the Atlantic, it may be said to present a cheering spot on that great waste, — a frontier of intelligence to what has been hitherto a wide-spread and hopeless world of savagery. The success of this experiment at colonizing, is in many respects interesting. In the first place, it is, we think, conclusively shown, that the negro races may be impressed with all the ordinary characteristics of a civilized people, and that they are thus capable of that species of self-government which marks a high state of intellectual advancement. Of their for assuming this condition, after due culture and experience in orderly habits, we indeed never entertained a doubt. It is very pleasing to find that out of the rude and unshapely mass of negroism, there has at length arisen a people, who, in the eye of the world, vindicate their claim to humanity, their full and fair title to be treated as men and brothers. It is true that an experiment of the same nature has been less successful in Hayti, greatly to the damage of arguments in favor of negro self-government; and some may fear that the present effort in Liberia may terminate as ingloriously. But the two cases are scarcely parallel. Hayti commenced its career in blood and violence, and its civilization never appears to have been anything but a French polish, beneath which there was neither intellectual culture nor moral or religious restraints. The basis of Liberian independence is very different. The nation was begun in Christian love, was fostered with the parental tenderness of superior intellect, and, attaining strength and self-confidence, has at last been committed to its own experienced guidance. Its civilization, moreover, is