Their intercourse, and association with certain classes of our white population is calculated to produce, and does produce, in the estimation of your memorialists, serious evils to the country. But the preceding considerations are light, and trivial, when compared with the injury sustained by the slaveholder, from this class of persons, as must be obvious to every member of your honorable body; Nor should the eminent danger to our social and political condition, by their presence, be overlooked, which arises from the fact, that there neither does, or can exist, between them, and our white population, any common bond of patriotism or private regard.[67]
The Colonization Society had an intermittent career. A sentiment for colonization, however, persisted in Tennessee to 1860, but it did not remain organized. “There is something in this position of the cause of Tennessee,” said the African Repository in 1846, “which we cannot understand. There are many friends of colonization in the state. We have applications from many of the colored people for transportation to Liberia. Many slaves have been manumitted for the purpose of being sent there, and yet little or no money can be raised for the advancement of the enterprise.”[68] The next year the Repository stated that “We are gratified to perceive that Tennessee is beginning to awake on the subject of African colonization. Between eighty and one hundred free people of color are now preparing to emigrate from that state to Liberia. They wish to go in the vessel that leaves New Orleans in December next; and the means to take them will probably be raised in the state. A writer in the Record proposes to be one of fifty who will give one hundred dollars each to purchase territory to be called Tennessee in Africa.”[69] The average expense of sending a free negro to Liberia and supporting him for six months was $50. Shortly after the meeting of 1846, the “Rothschild” sailed from New Orleans with emigrants from Tennessee for Liberia.
A minister of the Gospel in Tennessee, writing to the Repository in 1847, advocated colonization for substantially the following reasons:
1. It means ultimately the complete removal of the negro.
2. It benefits the negro by placing him in an environment that erects no barriers to his development.
3. It affords the Christian an opportunity to give up his slaves.
4. It lays claim to the noblest feelings of the patriot, and of the whole-souled philanthropist. Its tendency is good, only good, and that continually. If it has not accomplished all that its friends desire, what agency has?
West Tennessee was more interested in colonization than either East or Middle Tennessee. In fact, colonization was largely anti-free-negro rather than anti-slavery, especially so in West Tennessee, where it was regarded as a means of eliminating the free negro from among the slaves. West Tennessee was not nearly so anti-slavery in sentiment as East Tennessee. There was organized a separate colonization society at Memphis, June 12, 1848, largely through the efforts of the Presbyterian Church. It adopted a constitution of six articles, and elected a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and twelve directors who constituted a board of managers. It was an auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. It was to accomplish its object “by the contribution of money to the Parent Society by the dissemination of intelligence concerning the operations, objects, and prosperity of the colonization enterprise.”[70] A campaign was waged in Memphis for funds to support the society.[71]
The Tennessee Colonization Society was incorporated on February 8, 1850. Philip Lindsey, president of the University of Nashville, was made its president. It now became a corporation and a body politic. It could sue and be sued, and was permitted to receive gifts of money, goods, and real estate, provided the total value of such gifts did not exceed $10,000 in any one year. It used its own seal.[72]