[256]. McPherson’s Pol. Hist., pp. 226–227.
[257]. The question of colonizing free blacks out of the United States engaged the attention of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, who had some correspondence on the subject at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Late in the year 1816 there was organized in the city of Washington the “National Colonization Society,” of which the expressed purpose was to encourage emancipation by procuring a place outside the United States, preferably in Africa, to which free negroes could be aided in emigrating. This, it was believed, would rid the South of its free colored population which had already become a nuisance. Until 1830 it was warmly supported everywhere, and branches of the society were established in nearly every State. In the South its purposes were furthered by James Madison, by Charles Carroll and by Henry Clay. Bushrod Washington became president of the association. Rufus King and President Harrison were among its friends in the North.
Though Texas and Mexico were looked upon as favorable places for locating a colony of free blacks, they were sent to the British possession of Sierra Leone. In 1821 a permanent location was purchased in Liberia. This settlement, with Monrovia as its capital, became independent in 1847. The American Colonization Society attracted little notice after the rise, about 1829–30, of those known as immediate abolitionists.
[258]. Letters and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 155.
[259]. McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 251.
[260]. Ibid., p. 252.
[261]. Globe, Part III., 2 Sess. 37th Cong., p. 2068.
[262]. Ibid., p. 2618. Ibid., p. 2769.
[263]. McPherson’s Pol. Hist., p. 233.