Read it through once

Is it the duty of American slaveholders to liberate their slaves? I feel no hesitancy in replying to this interrogatory. It would be their duty, as Christians, to liberate their slaves, provided the condition of the slave would be improved thereby; otherwise it is their duty to retain them in bondage, and make that provision for them which their circumstances require. They should make ample provision for their physical wants--enlighten their minds; and so far as is practicable under existing circumstances, they should elevate their characters above that debasement and degradation, in which, ignorance, prejudice and vice has involved them. It is clearly the duty of slaveholders to place their slaves in that condition, which will conduce most to their happiness here and hereafter. But if this is their object, they could not, as a general rule, take a worse step, than to liberate them in their present condition and turn them loose among us. Nor do I consider the mass of the negro population in this country as yet prepared for colonization: but I would rejoice to see all well-disposed and intelligent negroes manumitted and colonized.