“Are the young merchants of Boston and of America indifferent to an enterprise which would give to our commerce, without a rival, such an empire as that to which I have pointed?—an empire not to be won by cruelty and conquest, but by peaceful and benignant means, and by imparting to others the inestimable blessings of liberty which we enjoy, and removing from our midst the only cause which threatens the prosperity and stability of the Union....”—Speech of Hon. F. P. Blair, Boston.
“It is my intention to use every effort to give practical effect to the propositions submitted to Congress, and I believe that the colored people themselves can give very efficient aid in the matter. If they will only let it be known that they approve, and are themselves willing to act upon the proposition, it will give it a great impulse.”—Hon. F. P. Blair—Letter to J. D. Harris.
“The only mode in which we can relieve our country, relieve the blacks and whites, and provide separate homes for them, is by some scheme which will meet the approbation of both—one which the parties themselves will execute.”—Hon. Preston King.
“Among all feasible things, there is nothing that in my judgment would so much promote a peaceful abolition of slavery as your son’s plan.”—Hon. Gerrit Smith to F. P. Blair, Sen.
“The feeling of the free blacks in relation to African colonization is no criterion by which to judge of the success of American intertropical emigration.... I am confident that with proper inducements to be held out before them in regard to security of liberty and property, and prospects for well-doing, I could muster two hundred emigrant families or about one thousand colored persons annually for the next five years, of the very best class for colonial settlement and industry, from various parts of the United States and Canada, who would gladly embark for homes in our American tropics.”—Rev. J. T. Holly.
To the above might be added the views and opinions of many of the most eminent men in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Maryland, and other States, among them the Hon. Mr. Bates, and Sam’l T. Glover, Esq., of St. Louis. But none seem more appropriate to close this volume than the following from the Rev. Dr. Duffield, of Detroit.
Detroit, Feb. 18, 1860.
Dear Bro. Kendall:—
Allow me to commend to your attention the object in which Mr. Harris has embarked. I think very favorably of it on various grounds, but regard it as especially indicative of God’s providential designs in relation to the introduction of the gospel into that portion of our American continent which has attracted our attention, and which led yourself with me to memorialize the General Assembly on the subject of commencing a system of missions in Mexico, Central and Southern America. I had intended writing to you on the subject with a view to the prosecution of the matter of our memorial next spring, when the Assembly meets at Pittsburg. I know not, nor can I learn, what has been done in pursuance of the action of the last General Assembly. The whole matter as reported I failed to understand, and have since had no light shed upon the subject. May not this movement prove an occasion, if not of connection to the mission, of bespeaking a deeper interest in behalf of our benighted populations of Central and Southern America than has yet been felt by and in our country....
Truly Yours,