1832 LIBERIA - SLAVERY. A Plea for the American Colonization Society by James Milnor.

Very rare sermon by one of the most significant religious voices associated with the Colonization Society. James Milnor [1773-1845] was a member of the early abolitionist, Pennsylvania Society [1798], a member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, and Rector of St. George's Chapel in New York City. 

Though a strict abolitionist in his earlier years, he came to support the effort of Colonization as a matter of practicality. Over time, he came to believe that the emergence of significant populations of formerly enslaved black persons was bad for America and bad for the former slaves themselves.

In his discourse, he urges that this is no fault of the enslaved. They are not worse by nature and are in God's  image. But their history in Africa and as slaves, he argues, had made them ignorant and prone to various sins. And because they would also not be granted citizenship, they were likely to form a permanent class of criminals, rendering America unsafe . . . never mind the likely infectious effect they may have on the American citizenry. 

The sermon is inscribed "To the President, Vice-Presidents, and Board of Managers of the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour of the United States, This Humble Effort to Promote the Patriotic, Benevolent, and Christian Enterprize, in which They are Engaged . . . " and is based on Psalm 68.31, "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God."

. . . They who would have denied even the declaration of God himself, that he has made of one blood all the nations of the earth, are compelled, by the developments of a few years past, to acknowledge that Ethiopia's swarthy sons are rational beings like themselves; awfully ingulphed, it is true, in ignorance and sin, but endowed with intellects capable of receiving, with interest and affection, God's message of mercy to our fallen world, and of appreciation and seeking the improvements of learning and civilization.

A rare survivor with no examples on the market at the time of cataloging and we trace no example in the auction record. 

Milnor, James. A Plea for the American Colonization Society: A Sermon Preached in St. George's Church, New-York, on Sunday, July 9, 1826. New York. John P. Haven. 1826. 31pp.

A good + copy. Text is bright and complete with some moderate foxing. Removed from a sammelband at some earlier point.