'It had been properly observed by the chairman, as well as by the gentlemen from this District (Messrs Clay and Caldwell) that there was nothing in the proposition submitted to consideration which in the smallest degree touched another very important and delicate question, which ought to be left as much out of view as possible, (Negro slavery.) * * Mr R. concluded by saying, that he had thought it necessary to make these remarks, being a slaveholder himself, to shew, that, so far from being connected with the abolition of slavery, the measure proposed would prove one of the greatest securities to enable the master to keep in possession his own property.'-[Speech of John Randolph at the same meeting.] Your committee would not thus favorably regard the prayer of the memorialists, if it sought to impair, in the slightest degree, the rights of private property, or the yet more sacred rights of personal liberty, secured to every description of freemen in the United States. 'The resolution of the legislature of Virginia, the subsequent acts and declarations, as well as the high character of the memorialists themselves, added to the most obvious interest of the states who have recently sanctioned the purpose, or recognized the existence of the American Colonization Society, exclude the remotest apprehension of such injustice and inhumanity.' -[Report of the committee of the House of Representatives of the United States, on the memorial of the President and Board of Managers of the Col nization Society.-Second Annual Report.] 'An effort for the benefit of the blacks, in which all parts of the country c unite, of course must not have the abolition of slavery for its immite object. NOR MAY IT AIM DIRECTLY AT THE INSTRUCTION OF TH BLACKS. In either case, the prejudices and terrors of the slavening States would be excited in a moment; and with reason too, for it is a val tablished point, that the public safety forbids either the emancipatum r the general instruction of the slaves.' "It [African Colonne * * * is an enterprise in which all parts of the country can unite. The 'It will be seen at home and abroad, that the American Cela no elty. quar operour sole y and to * 'We ulation, and .S. We hold then this slane occasion.] the Colonization ith slavery. This Iding States are beSenate of Louisiana e of the opinion that f the general governociety infringes upon no to remedy an evil which Ive the free people of color the Massachusetts Coloni gle specific course of measures. tion of slavery, or the relief of The Society has reiterated the declaration that it has no ulterior views diverse from the object avowed in the constitution; and having declared that it is in nowise allied to any Abolition Society in America or elsewhere, is ready whenever there is need TO PASS A CENSURE UPON SUCH SOCIETIES AMERICA.'-[Speech of Mr Harrison of Virginia.-Eleventh Annual Report.] IN 'We have the same interests in this subject with our southern brethren-the same opportunity of understanding it, and of knowing with what care and prudence it should be approached. What greater pledge can we give for the moderation and safety of our measures than our own interests as slaveholders, and the ties that bind us to the slaveholding communities to which we belong?'[Speech of Mr Key.-Same Report.] The second objection may be resolved into this; that the Society, under the specious pretext of removing a vicious and noxious population, is secretly undermining the rights of private property. This is the objection expressed in its full force, and if your memorialists could for a moment believe it to be true in point of fact, they would never, slaveholders as they are, have associated themselves together for the purpose of co-operating with the Parent Society; and far less would they have appeared in the character in which they now do, before the legislative bodies of a slaveholding State. And, if any instance could be now adduced, in which the Society has ever manifested even an intention to depart from the avowed object, for the promotion of which it was originally instituted, none would with more willingness and readiness withdraw from it their countenance and support. But, from the time of its formation, down to the present period, all its operations have been directed exclusively to the promotion of its one grand object, namely, the colonization in Africa of the free people of color of the United States. It has always protested, and through your memorialists it again protests, that it hus no wish to interfere with the delicate but important subject of slavery. It has never, in a solitary instance, addressed itself to the slave. It has never sought to invade the tranquillity of the domestic circle, nor the peace and safety of society.'-[Memorial of the Auxiliary Colonization Society of Powhatan, to the Legislature of Virginia.-Twelfth Annual Report.] Therefore she looked, and well might she look, to colonization and to colonization alone. To abolition she could not look, and need not look. Whatever that scheme may have done, heretofore, in the States now free, it had done nothing and could do nothing in the slave States for the cause of humanity. This subject he rejoiced to know was now better understood, and all began to see that it was wiser and safer to remove, by colonization, a great and otherwise insuperable impediment to emancipation, than to act upon the subject of emancipation itself.'-[Speech of Mr Key,-Thirteenth Annual Report.] Our Society has nothing to do directly with the question of slavery.' ** * Whilst the Society protests that it has no designs on the rights of the master in the slave or the property in his slave, which the laws guarantee to him,' &c.— [Speech of Gerrit Smith, Esq.-Fourteenth Annual Report.] 'Its primary object now is, and ever has been, to colonize, with their own consent, free people of color on the coast of Africa, or elsewhere, as Congress may deem expedient. And, Sir, I am unwilling to admit, under any circumstances, and particularly in this Hall, that it ever has swerved from this cardina! object.'-[Speech of Mr Benham.-Fourteenth Annual Report.] Something he must yet be allowed to say, as regarded the object the Society was set up to accomplish. This object, if he understood it aright, involved no intrusion on property, NOR EVEN UPON PREJUDICE.'-[Speech of Mr Archer of Virginia. Fifteenth Annual Report.] * * * 6 'That the effort made by the Society should be such as to unite all parts of the country—such as to be in any degree ultimately successful, it was necessary to disclaim all attempts for the immediate abolition of slavery, or the instruction of the great body of the blacks. Such attempts would have excited alarm and jealousy, would have been inconsistent with the public safety, and defeated the great purposes of the Society.' It is pleasing to learn that the Friends, who at first were not favorable to the Society, having been inclined to the immediate abolition of slavery, are coming into what we deem the more wise policy of encouraging emancipation by colonization.' -[Speech of Harmanus Bleecker, Esq. at the Second Anniversary Meeting of the New-York Colonization Society, April 14, 1831.] 'The plan of colonization seems the only one entitled to the least consideration.'-[Speech of M. C. Paterson, Esq. on the same occasion.] Nor will their brethren of the North desire to interfere with their constitutional rights, or rashly to disturb a system interwoven with their feelings, habits, and prejudices. A golden mean will be pursued, which, at the same time that it consults the wishes, and respects the prejudices of the South, will provide for the claims of justice and Christianity, and avert the storm of future desolation.'-[Speech of Lucius Q. C. Elmer, Esq.-First Annual Report of the NewJersey Colonization Society.] Views are attributed to us, that were never entertained, and our plan is tortured into a design to emancipate the Slaves of the South. We are made to disregard this description of property, and to touch without reserve the rights of our neighbors. We are said to tread this almost forbidden ground with firm step, and a hardihood of effort is imputed to us, which, if true, might well excite the indignation of our southern citizens.-But, Sir, our Society and the friends of colonization wish to be distinctly understood upon this point. From the beginning they have disavowed, and they do yet disavow, that their object is the emancipation of the slaves. They have no wish, if they could, to interfere in the smallest degree with what they deem the most interesting and fearful subject which can be pressed upon the American public.' * * * There is no people that treat their slaves with so much kindness and with so little cruelty. Nor can I believe that we shall meet with any serious opposition from that quarter, when our object is distinctly understood-when it is known that our operations are confined exclusively to the free black population. That this is our sole object, I appeal with entire confidence to the constitution of our Society and to the constitution and Annual Reports of the Parent Institution.' 'We again repeat-that our operations are confined to the free black population, and that there is no ground for fear on the part of our southern friends. We hold their slaves as we hold their other property, SACRED. Let not then this slander be repeated.'-[Speech of James S. Green, Esq. on the same occasion.] * * * 'Nothing has contributed more to retard the operations of the Colonization Society than the mistaken notion that it interferes directly with slavery. This objection is rapidly vanishing away, and many of the slaveholding States are becoming efficient supporters of the national society. In the Senate of Louisiana during its last session, resolutions were adopted expressive of the opinion that the object of this Society was deserving the patronage of the general government. An enlightened community now see, that this Society infringes upon no man's rights, that its object is noble and benevolent-to remedy an evil which is felt and acknowledged at the north and south-to give the free people of color the privileges of freemen.'-[From a Tract issued by the Massachusetts Colonization Society in 1831, for gratuitous distribution.] "This institution proposes to do good by a single specific course of measures. Its direct and specific purpose is not the abolition of slavery, or the relief of pauperism, or the extension of commerce and civilization, or the enlargement of science, or the conversion of the heathen. The single object which its constitution prescribes, and to which all its efforts are necessarily directed, is, African colonization from America. It proposes only to afford facilities for the voluntary emigration of free people of color from this country to the country of their fathers.'-[Review on African Colonization.-Christian Spectator for September, 1830.] It interferes in nowise with the right of property, and hopes and labors for the gradual abolition of slavery, by the voluntary and gradual manumission of slaves, when the free persons of color shall have first been transferred to their aboriginal climate and soil.'-[G. W. P. Custis, Esq.-African Repository, vol. i. p. 39.] Does this Society wish to meddle with our slaves as our rightful property? I answer no, I think not.'—[African Repository, vol. ii. p. 13.] *** They have been denounced by some as fanatical and visionary innovators, pursuing without regard to means or consequences, an object destructive of the rights of property, and dangerous to the public peace.' *** The sole object of the Society, as declared at its institution, and from which it can never be allowed to depart, is to remove with their own consent, to the coast of Africa, the free colored population, now existing in the United States, and such as hereafter may become free.' In pursuing their object, therefore, (although such consequences may result from a successful prosecution of it,) the Society cannot be justly charged with aiming to disturb the rights of property or the peace of society. Your memorialists refer with confidence to the course they have pursued, in the prosecution of their object for nine years past, to shew that it is possible, without danger or alarm, to carry on such an operation, notwithstanding its supposed relation to the subject of slavery, and that they have not been regardless, in any of their measures, of what was due to the state of society in which they live. They are, themselves, chiefly slaveholders, and live, with all the ties of life binding them to a slaveholding community. They know when to speak and when to forbear upon topics connected with this painful and difficult subject. They put forth no passionate appeals before the public, seek to excite no feeling, and avoid, with the most sedulous care, every measure that would endanger the public tranquillity.' *** The managers could, with no propriety, depart from their original and avowed purpose, and make emancipation their object. And they would further say, that if they were not thus restrained by the terms of their association, they would still consider any attempts to promote the increase of the free colored population by manumission, unnecessary, premature, and dangerous.' It seems now to be admitted that, whatever has any bearing upon that question, must be managed with the utmost consideration; that the peace and order of society must not be endangered by indiscreet and ill-timed efforts to promote emancipation; and that a true regard should be manifested to the feelings and the fears, and even the prejudices of those, whose co-operation is essential.'-[Memorial of the Society to the several States.-A. R. vol. ii. pp. 57, 58, 60.] *** To found in Africa an empire of christians and republicans; to reconduct the blacks to their native land, without disturbing the order of society, the laws of property, or the rights of individuals; rapidly, but legally, silently, gradually, to drain them off; these are the noble ends of the colonization scheme.'-[African Repository, vol. ii. p. 375.] 'Nor have I ever been able to see, for my part, why the patronage of Congress to a benevolent and patriotic Society, which, without interfering, in the smallest degree, with that delicate interest, only aims to remove what we all consider as a great evil-our free people of color-(and which evil does inter fere with that interest,) should excite the jealousy or spleen of our most watchful and determined advocates of state rights.'-[Idem, p. 383.] Recognising the constitutional and legitimate existence of slavery, it seeks not to interfere, either directly or indirectly, with the rights which it creates. Acknowledging the necessity by which its present continuance and the rigorous provisions for its maintenance are justified, it aims only at furnishing the States, in which it exists, the means of immediately lessening its severities, and of ultimately relieving themselves from its acknowledged evils.'[Opimius in reply to Caius Gracchus.-African Repository, vol. iii. p. 16.] * It is no abolition Society; it addresses as yet arguments to no master, and disavows with horror the idea of offering temptations to any slave. IT DENIES THE DESIGN OF ATTEMPTING EMANCIPATION, EITHER PARTIAL OR GENERAL; it denies, with us, that the General Government have any power to emancipate; and declares that the States have exclusively the right to regulate the whole subject of slavery. The scope of the Society is large enough, but it is in nowise mingled or confounded with the broad sweeping views of a few fanatics in America, who would urge us on to the sudden and total abolition of slavery.' * * The first great material objection is that the Society does, in fact, in spite of its denial, meditate and conspire the emancipation of the slaves. To the candid, let me say that there are names on the rolls of the Society too high to be rationally accused of the duplicity and insidious falsehood which this implies; farther, the Society and its branches are composed, in by far the larger part, of citizens of slaveholding States, who cannot gravely be charged with a design so perilous to themselves. To the uncandid disputant, I say, let him put his finger on one single sentiment, declaration or act of the Society, or of any person, with its sanction, which shows such to be their object: there is in fact no pretext for the charge.' 'Let me repeat, the friends of the Colonization Society, three-fourths of them are SLAVEHOLDERS ; the legislatures of Maryland, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, all slaveholding States, have approved it; every member of this auxiliary Society is, either in himself, or his nearest relatives, interested in holding slaves.' 'Once more; this Society is no way connected with certain Abolition Societies in the country. To these the Colonization So-ciety would say, "Your object is unattainable, your zeal dangerous, and nothing can give it the right direction or the right temperature, but your surrendering your plan to ours: be convinced, that if the blacks are ever to be removed from us, it will be by the free will of the owners, and by means of the opportu nity which our innocent plan of an asylum for such as may be sent will af ford.”’—[“ The Col. Society Vindicated.”—Idem, pp. 197, 200, 202, 203.] * * * * * * They can impress upon the southern slaveholder, by the strength of facts, and by the recorded declarations of honest men, that the objects of the Colonization Society are altogether pure and praiseworthy, and that it has no intention to open the door to universal liberty, but only to cut out a channel, where the merciful providence of God may cause those dark waters to flow off.'[Idem, vol. iv. p. 145.] About twelve years ago, some of the wisest men of the nation, (mostly slaveholders,) formed, in the city of Washington, the present American Colonization Society. Among them were men high in office, who had spent many years in studying the interests of their country, and who could not, therefore, be suspected of short-sighted enthusiasm, or any secret design of disturbing the rights or the safety of our southern citizens.' You will observe, first, that there is to be no intermeddling with property in slaves. THE * * * RIGHTS OF MASTERS ARE то REMAIN SACRED IN THE EYES OF THE SOCIETY. The tendency of the scheme, and one of its objects, is to secure slaveholders, and the whole southern country, against certain evil |