We have been requested to publish the following extract from an address delivered by Doct. Wm. Hutchins, before the Windham Co. Colonization Society, at its anniversary held in this town on the 4 ^th of July last. The address referred to, was delivered at a time when the community was highly excited on the slavery question, and a good number of those, who professed to be abolitionists, were present and heard it. And yet no attempt was made at the time to overthrow its arguments, or to counteract its influence upon the public mind.* [Here, William Lloyd Garrison inserts the important footnote – “This is a wilful and flagrant falsehood. The address was ably reviewed, at the time, in the columns of the Brooklyn Unionist, by its intelligent editor, Mr. Burleigh, who challenged the heathenish doctor to a public discussion.—ED. LIB.”]

It is well known that equality in every respect, between our white and black population, is a prominent feature in the abolition creed. For a time, but very few of the abolitionists themselves, were willing to advocate this doctrine in public, but they do not hesitate to do it now, on all occasions. If, therefore, any member of that association is disposed to answer this extract in a direct and explicit manner, he shall have an opportunity to do so in the columns of this paper.

[actual speech follows]

But, says the abolitionist, this country is the black man’s home as much as it is yours, and you have no right to drive him from it. Granted. But is it inconsistent with benevolence to wish to better his condition by removing him? Still it is replied, our duty requires us to make this country a pleasant home to him, by removing the civil and social disabilities which now make him what he is, a poor degraded being.

Let us examine this point a little. The negro, in the present state of society, is denied several political privileges. He is deprived of the right of suffrage. He is excluded from all offices of honor and profit. He is prohibited by public sentiment from practicing in the several professions. He is virtually shut out from many other employments, by which his white neighbor earns distinction and wealth. Now, let the law do what it can for him—let every political disability be removed,—‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished—establish institutions for his moral and intellectual cultivation, and what then? The outworks are indeed forced, but the citadel remains yet impregnable. He is black, and this single circumstance, I am bold to say, will always be a barrier between him and the white, which he cannot overleap. Educated and accomplished he may be, and protected by the whole power of the civil arm, still he is forever condemned to occupy the lowest point in the scale of social life. No form of philanthropy, no legal enactment can prevent this. There is an imperium in imperio, an empire of sentiment and fashion and opinion, an authority of nature and instinct, altogether paramount to all written law, and beyond its control. The negro, if he be allowed to vote by your side, must act with you as your equal every where else. You must meet him with a bright smile of joyous congratulation. You must extend to him all the tender charities and courtesies of social life. You must give him a seat at your table, a welcome to your fireside and to your parlor, a place beside you in your bed. You must reciprocate with him all the elegances and refinements of polished society. He must be your companion and confidential friend by day and by night, by the way side and in the field, in the drawing room of the affluent, as well as in the hut of the indigent. He must be allowed to break to you the bread of life—to prescribe to you in sickness, and decide in courts of justice and halls of legislation, important questions pertaining to your life, liberty and property. In all these things, there must be no constraint, but you must bind him to your heart of hearts, and most freely and unaffectedly, share with him in the delicate sympathies and fond endearments of domestic life. If fortune smiles upon him and frowns upon you, you must be content to sit at his feet and serve him. Unless you go to this full extent, you degrade him. Admit him to a moiety of these privileges, and he will but more keenly feel the loss of the remainder. The higher he goes, the more will his avidity increase, to reach the summit. Keep back a single social or civil right pertaining to entire equality, and that Mordecai in the gate will embitter all his joys, and render unavailable the blushing honors he bears so thick upon him. Such is human nature.

Now, fellow citizens, need I ask, if it be possible to elevate the black man to an equality with the white? If it be, I give up the argument at once. If the negro can be treated in this country as it becometh a man, in whose face is lighted up the quenchless fire of an undying intellect, and on whose brow God has stamped the indelible signet of immortality, the colonization society, as far as respects the American negro, is laboring in a worthless cause. Take the negro home to your heart, and embrace him as your brother, and you will save our society much time and expense.

Can this be done? I appeal to you not as inhabitants of Heaven or of Paradise, not as angels or glorified saints, but as imperfect men and women, tenants of this nether sphere, in which bitter is mingled with the sweet, and thorns encircle every rose. Are you willing to go all this length in relation to the black man? Can you so far conquer your antipathies as to make him your equal in the true intent and meaning of this term? ABOLITIONISTS, CAN YOU?

History furnishes no instances of two distinct races of men, holding no connection by blood with each other, living together on terms of perfect equality. Turn its pages over and look through the long and gloomy annals of the past, and you cannot find a single fact of the kind. In order to equality, there must be amalgamation or separation. When Rome was inundated by a deluge of barbarians, the aboriginals of the country were not exterminated, but Hun, Goth, Vandal, and Roman united together, and gradually blended into the modern Italians. When Britain was overrun by a successive tide of Danes, Saxons, and Normans, the ancient inhabitants were in part driven into Wales, and in still larger proportions, became incorporated with their invaders. All past experience is opposed to the abolition doctrine of ‘prejudice vincible’ without amalgamation.

Fellow citizens, take your stand. Look at the ultimate results of the immediate emancipation scheme, and let the overflowings of your benevolence be directed to a union of the two races by ties of consanguinity, or to a separation between them. If the one be revolting to reason and nature, and the other be deemed impossible, then sit down content under a state of things melancholy indeed, but remediless and desperate.