"My duty and destiny are in Africa, the great and glorious even with its defects of your and my ancestors. I cannot, I will not desert her for all the things else in this world, save that of my own household, and that does not require it. It will thereby be enhanced. . . .Do not misunderstand me as objecting to your movement as conflicting with mine or ours. This is not the case, as we desire no promiscuous or general emigration to Africa (as the country needs no laborers, these everywhere abounding, industriously employed in various occupations). But select and intelligent people to guide and direct the industry and promote civilization with the establishment of higher social organization, and the legitimate development of our inexhaustible commerce which promises not only certain wealth to us, but all the rest of the world, besides the certainly of thereby putting a stop to the infamous slave trade with a reflex influence upon the, if possible, more infamous American slave trade. In this we desire not to shed their (the southern monsters) blood but make them shed their tears. . .
"I have nothing to say against Haitian emigration, but I am surprised that in the face of the intelligent black men who favor it, two of whom have been to that country and one to Jamaica (yourself, Mr. J. D. Harris, and Mr. Garnet), the government would appoint over them to encourage black immigration, a white man, thereby acknowledging your inferiority, and the charge recently made against them by Dr. J. McCune Smith that according to their estimate "next to God is the white man". . . .I cannot, I say, be charged with prejudice when I object to a black government appointing over black men a white when blacks were competent to act and no policy requires the appointment of a white.
"I object to white men in such cases getting all the positions of honor and emoluments, while the blacks receive only the subordinate, with little or no pay. I maintain this position is necessary to self respect, and treat with contempt the idea that it makes no difference in such cases whether the person be white or black, where black men are still occupying inferior positions in the midst of the people who deny their equality in all the relations of life."
MRD in "The Chatham Planet," January 15, 1861.
