“ When the transported population of Liberia shall be 50,000 or 200,000, they will present a market for our surplus manufactures, and bread stuffs, of immense value. A line of settlements on the coast will command the commerce of the interior. If that power is held by men sent from this country by a large and liberal policy, nurtured and grown up under our institutions, and by our fostering care and aid, in establishing themselves in Liberia, they will ever be inclined to trade with this country, and thus open to our merchant, those wide fields of wealth! ”

“ And now, in conclusion, I should fail of expressing the feelings which are rising in my bosom, did I not congratulate you, gentlemen of the Society, on the eminent success which has already crowned your benevolent labors. A new republic has sprung into existence under your auspices. Yes; a free, representative, constitutional republic, formed on the model of our own beloved institutions. A republic, founded by black men, reared by black men, put into operation by the blacks, and which holds out to our hope the brightest prospects. ”

“ Is it not a fact that the Government of Liberia is now firmly established? Do they not want more citizens of education and influence? Are there not thousands of acres of the richest land there, waiting for cultivation? Have we not all been for years looking to the time when the work of colonization should be carried on with means and resources adequate to the greatness of the work? ”

“ It has been truly stated, that from the day of its formation to the present hour, the Society has been surrounded with difficulties. It has had to stand the fire of batteries both in front and rear, and upon both flanks. Extremes of opinion and of action, which could unite in nothing else, united in assaulting us. Those who cared for the safety of the institution of slavery assailed us on one hand, while the Abolitionists assaulted us on the other. ”

“ If I am not mistaken, the immigration from abroad into the port of New York alone, in the course of the last year, was fully equal to the annual increase of the free colored population of the Union, and yet all that was done voluntarily, and in most cases without any, or with very little aid. The fact rests on the great motive which, to a greater or less extent, governs all human action. Why is it that the Germans and the Irish have thus flocked to our shores in numbers to meet the annual increase of our free colored people not only, but, as I believe, that of the slave population also? ”

“ And if such be of necessity their condition here, to send them to Africa, not by coercion, but with their own free consent, is surely the best practicable mode of doing them good. And here I would say to those in both extremes of opinion and of feeling on the subject of slavery—I would say to all men—why should the free people of color of these United States not have the option of removing to Africa, or remaining where they are, just as they themselves shall choose? ”

“ Yet now, what land is there on the broad surface of the habitable globe, what sea spreads out its waste of waters, that has not been penetrated and traversed by the enterprise, the skill, and the courage of our New England brethren? And on what battle-field, in what council chamber, can a single spot in our vast country be found where the Virginian character has not displayed itself in its gallantry or its deliberative wisdom? I repeat it; all the greatest enterprises of man have had small beginnings. ”

“ I am led to the opinion, from all the inquiry I have been able to make, that the difficulty of effecting the regeneration of Africa is exaggerated; that a large part of her population is susceptible of the highest forms of civilization; that the arts of life, as we understand them, already exist in many parts of the continent to a much greater extent than is commonly supposed; that the interior slave trade is the great obstacle which prevents its speedily taking a high place in the family of nations ”

“ No savage people have ever advanced to a civilized state without intercommunication with others. All the continents of the world have, in their turn, been occupied and civilized by means of colonies; but in no one of them did it appear so inevitably necessary, from a previous examination of circumstances, as in that of Africa. It is plain to the very eye, that Africa is a land to which civilization must be brought. ”

“ A like motive will sway the free blacks when enlightened as to the real facts of the case. If they reach the shores of Africa, whether by their own means, or by the aid and agency of others, their position will be physically, morally, and politically better than by any possibility it ever can be here. It is not our office to attempt impracticabilities; to amalgamate two races which God himself, by a difference of color, besides other inherent distinctions, has declared must be separate, and remain separate, from each other. ”

“ They are preparing to accomplish a work for their native continent, which no other people in the world can accomplish. Their plain mission is, ultimately to carry the gifts of society, of religion, of government, to the last remaining continent of the earth, where these blessings are totally unknown. Their work is a great one, as it would seem to be connected essentially with the final and universal triumph of civilization and Christianity in the world. ”

“ I believe that no other means will ever prove so operative and effectual to that end as the covering the entire coast of that quarter of the globe with colonies of free colored men. Then would all be united, by sympathy for their outraged countrymen, in heartily advancing a design which commends itself to every feeling of the black man’s heart. ”

“ In no part of the Union do the free blacks enjoy an equality of political and social privileges; and in all the States their presence is neither agreeable to the whites, nor is their condition advantageous to themselves. In some of the slave States stringent prohibitions have been adopted, and unpleasant controversies with free States have been thereby engendered. The emigration of this entire population beyond the limits of our country is the only effectual mode of curing these evils, and of removing one cause of dangerous irritation between the different sections of the Union. ”

“ Many circumstances at the present moment seem to concur in brightening the prospects of the society, and cherishing the hope that the time will come when the dreadful calamity which has so long afflicted our country, and filled so many with despair, will be gradually removed, and by means consistent with justice, peace, and the general satisfaction; thus giving to our country the full enjoyment of the blessings of liberty, and to the world the full benefit of its great example. ”

“ They exhibit to the eyes of a barbarous people the model of a free, temperate, industrious, civilized, and Christian society. They have legislative assemblies, courts of justice, schools, and churches. Though having enjoyed in this country but very imperfect means of improvement, and left it with small means, they have done much for themselves, and much for civilization and Christianity—have enacted laws for the extirpation of the slave trade, and, wherever their rightful authority exists, executed them with vigor; they have successfully engaged in agriculture and in lawful commerce ”

“ But on what ground should either oppose such an enterprise? Our ground in regard to both was total non-interference. We meant to deal only with colored persons already free. This did not interfere with the projects of the Abolitionists. For myself, I believe those projects to be impracticable; and I am persuaded that if the same energy and effort which have been expended in getting up abolition movements, had been directed to the work of colonization, a vast amount of benefit would have resulted to the cause of humanity and to the colored race. Why should they attack us? ”

“ Hitherto, the slave trade has been at war with all improvement and every kind of innocent commerce. Its cessation will be succeeded by the cultivation of the soil, and the growth of trade in all the varied and valuable productions of the African climate. It is of infinite importance that the natives of Africa should be convinced that agricultural labor, and the substitution of lawful trade for the infamous commerce in human beings, will be for their advantage ”

“ To send a colored man out of the United States to a country like that is held up as an act of the greatest inhumanity. But, happily, our records bear the most grateful testimony to the reverse of all this. Let us for a moment compare the mortality of Liberia with that of the colonies planted on our own shores. Within the first seventeen years from the settlement of Jamestown, in Virginia, nine thousand colonists arrived, £150,000 sterling were expended in transporting them from England, yet at the end of that period but about two thousand of them remained alive. ”

“ In fine, Liberia and the Maryland settlement at Cape Palmas present themselves to this country and the world, not only as eligible asylums for our free colored population, and for such as may become free, but as republican and Christian States, informed by the elements of indefinite growth and improvement, capable, duly countenanced, and guarded against the interference of unfriendly powers, of rising to honor and greatness, and of diffusing the influence of its laws and example over wide districts of Africa. ”

“ Liberia enjoys a favorable geographical position. She is protected by the great Powers of Europe. The Liberians have constitutions adapted to the climate, and a similarity of color with the natives. They will penetrate the interior with safety, and prosecute their trade in the bays and rivers of the coast, without suffering from the diseases which are so fatal to the white man. Liberia is the door of Africa, and is destined to develope the agricultural and commercial resources of that continent, besides being the means of regenerating her benighted millions. ”

“ The creation of a nation is not the work of a day or of a century. For two or three centuries the embryo nation of the Israelites remained captives in Egypt. But when this Government, or the State governments, shall lend the enterprise their powerful aid, its progress will not be so slow. And when the colony shall have made further advances, it will be self-sustained and increased by its own commerce and marine. I speak not, of course, of any unconstitutional aid. Incidental aid, at least, may be given it in strict accordance with the Constitution. ”

“ The subjects embraced therein are worthy the most zealous co-operation of all who value the institutions of our country, and who are willing to establish on the coast of Africa the only means which, under the blessing of God, may bring light out of gloom, order out of disorder, mind out of instinct, civilization out of barbarism, and heaven-born truth out of Pagan superstition and cruelty. ”

“ Since that time, the recognition of the political independence of Liberia, by the leading European powers, is an event well calculated to lead thoughtful persons to contemplate, with new interest, what seems to me one of the most important occurrences of the age—the appearance of a new Republic on the shores of Africa, composed of citizens who by birth are (the greater part of them) our own countrymen ”

“ The latter of these has been the subject of treaties by our Government with other nations, with whom we have engaged to maintain a large naval force on the coast of Africa to assist in suppressing the inhuman traffic; while the emigration of the free blacks has long been an object of great interest in all parts of the country, and especially in the slaveholding States, where they are looked upon by the whites with aversion and distrust. The policy of all or most of these States has been to discourage manumission, except on condition of the removal of the liberated slave. ”

“ Our colony is but twenty-five years old; it has received already between four and five thousand colored emigrants, besides hundreds more of recaptured Africans; all of which have been sent there by order of this Government. Immense numbers of the natives are crowding into the colony to obtain the benefits of education, of civilization, and of Christianity. In addition to all these, there are many thousands more in the United States now seeking the advantages of colonization through the means [65] held out by this Society. As far then as we have gone, good is done. ”

“ But it is said that our Society is incapable of effecting any great object. That our aims can never be accomplished without aid from the State governments, or unless the General Government shall send out of the country all the free blacks. It is our purpose to show the power of colonization, in competent hands, fully to carry out the benevolent ends we have in view, to work all the [61] great results for which this Society was formed. ”

“ The attempt has been made over and over again by devoted missionaries and others to penetrate that land, and seek to impart the blessings of civilization and Christianity to her savage hordes. But the labor has been spent in vain. The white man cannot live in Africa. The annals of the Moravians, [71] of Cape Colony, of Sierra Leone, of Liberia, contain the records of the sacrifice of some of the best men that have lived to grace the pages of any people’s history, in the vain attempt to accomplish something for her redemption through the instrumentality of white men. ”

“ Africa, and would thus carry back to the country of their origin the seed of civilization, which might render their sojourning here a blessing in the end to that country. Nothing is more to be wished than that the United States would themselves undertake to make such an establishment on the coast of Africa. Exclusive of motives of humanity, the commercial advantages to be derived from it might defray all its expenses. ”