A treaty of peace having been concluded with Great Britain in 1815, the public mind reverted with increased interest to the scheme of colonization.
In the mean time Dr. Finley, Bishop Meade, Frank Key, &c., had been anxiously pondering the subject of African colonization. These, with other persons of like minds, assembled in the city of Washington on the 21st of December of the same year, and recommended the formation of the American Colonization Society.
Mr. Clay was chairman of the meeting, and stirring addresses were made by him, and by Messrs. Caldwell and Randolph, of Roanoke. A committee was appointed to present a memorial to Congress, asking their co-operation; John Randolph was on that committee. The society held its first meeting on the 17th of January, 1817, and elected its officers. Hon. Bushrod Washington was made president, and among the thirteen vice-presidents were Clay, Crawford, Jackson, and John Taylor, of Virginia. The committee of the society prepared a memorial to Congress, which was referred to a committee of the House of Representatives, who made an able report, concluding with resolutions recommending negotiations with the great states of Europe for the abolition of the slave trade, and an application to Great Britain to receive into the colony of Sierra Leone such of the free people of color of the United States as should be carried thither. And should this proposition not be accepted, then to obtain from Great Britain a stipulation, guaranteeing a permanent neutrality to any colony established under the auspices of the United States upon the coast of Africa.
On the 3d of March, 1819, Congress passed an act, authorizing the President of the United States to make such arrangements as he might deem expedient, for the safe keeping and removal out of the United States of such persons of color as might be brought into any of the States under the act abolishing the slave trade, and to appoint agents upon the coast of Africa for receiving such persons. Agents were accordingly appointed by the Government, who, acting in co-operation with the agents of the society, purchased territory, and established the colony. This purchase was made in 1822, by an agent of the society, and Captain Stockton, of the navy, on the part of the Government of the United States. From that moment the course of the colony has been steadily onward, “through evil and through good report,” until it has taken its place among the independent nations of the earth, under the denomination of the “Republic of Liberia.”
To return from this digression to Virginia. An auxiliary society was formed in Richmond in November, 1823, at the head of which was placed the Hon. John Marshall, (clarum et venerabile nomen,) who continued to preside over its deliberations, and to guide it by his wise counsels, to the day of his lamented death. He was succeeded by the Hon. John Tyler, late President of the United States. The Richmond society, by its able reports, its energetic agencies, and its stirring appeals, was instrumental in diffusing information and procuring contributions, which rendered very valuable aid in a time of need to the Parent Society at Washington. It also obtained from the Legislature, in 1825 and 1828, donations in clothing and implements of agriculture, which supplied very opportunely pressing wants of the infant colony in Africa. The Colonization Society, at this period, had a task of great delicacy to perform. The questions growing out of the admission of Missouri into the Union had fearfully agitated the whole country, and threatened to overwhelm this benevolent enterprise in ruin; but by following the chart of her original principles with the strictest fidelity, and steering between the rock of indifferentism on the one hand, and the whirlpool of abolitionism on the other, she was enabled, with the blessing of Heaven, to weather the storm. At this critical juncture were heard above the roaring of the tempest of fanaticism the voices of her gallant commanders, Madison and Marshall, cheering her onward in her noble mission.
Mr. Madison, in a letter dated Jan. 16, 1832, said, “the Society had always my best wishes, although with hopes of success less sanguine than those entertained by others found to be better judges, and I feel the greatest pleasure at the progress already made by the Society, and the encouragement to encounter remaining difficulties afforded by the greater and earlier difficulties already overcome. I cherish 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.”
Judge Marshall, in the same year, said, the removal of our colored population is a common object, by no means confined to the slave States, although they are more immediately interested in it. The whole Union, he adds, would be strengthened by it, and relieved from a danger whose extent can be scarcely estimated. Here we have the authority of the “father of the Constitution,” and its greatest expounder, both of whom thought the object contemplated by the Colonization Society so important that it demanded the interposition of the General Government, and both regarded the public lands as a proper resource of effecting it.
General Brodnax, in the session of 1832 and 1833, reported a bill devising ways and means for deporting free negroes, and such as may become free in Virginia, to Liberia. The bill proposed an appropriation of $35,000 for the present year, and $90,000 for the next, to be applied to this purpose. It passed the House of Delegates, but was lost in the Senate. Notwithstanding this discouragement, the subject was again moved, and on the 4th of March, 1833, an act passed the Legislature, appropriating $18,000, and constituting the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and 1st and 2d Auditors, a board of commissioners for carrying its provisions into effect. This act, as was predicted at the time, was rendered utterly inefficient by the restrictions with which it was encumbered.
In 1837, the Board of Managers of the Virginia Society, seconded by petitions from several auxiliary societies, presented a memorial to the Legislature, asking for an act of incorporation, and an amendment of the act of 1833, so as to make its provisions available; and on the 13th of February, of the same year, the report of the select committee, declaring these petitions reasonable, was agreed to by the House of Delegates, and a bill ordered. For want of time, or some other cause not known, this bill did not become a law. And now, in 1850, Mr. Dorman has reported a bill to the same end, founded upon the recommendation in the message of Governor Floyd.