"
The protest against the Colonization Society "signed by Wilberforce and
eleven of the most distinguished Abolitionists in Great Britain,"
including Buxton, Macaulay, Cropper, and Daniel O'Connell, showed how
thoroughly Garrison had accomplished his mission. The protest declares,
thanks to the teachings of the agent of the New England Anti-Slavery
Society, that the colonization scheme "takes its roots from a cruel
prejudice and alienation in the whites of America against the colored
people, slave or free. This being its source the effects are what might
be expected; that it fosters and increases the spirit of caste, already
so unhappily predominant; that it widens the breach between the two
races--exposes the colored people to great practical persecution, in
order to _force_ them to emigrate; and, finally, is calculated to
swallow up and divert that feeling which America, as a Christian and
free country, cannot but entertain, that slavery is alike incompatible
with the law of God and with the well-being of man, whether the enslaver
or the enslaved." The solemn conclusion of the illustrious signers of
this mighty protest was that: "That society is, in our estimation, not
deserving of the countenance of the British public." This powerful
instrument fell, as Garrison wrote at the time, "like a thunderbolt upon
the society." The damage inflicted upon it was immense, irreparable.
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