I have risen to submit a resolution, in behalf of which I would bespeak the favor of the society. But before I offer any observationsin its support, I must say that, whatever part I shall take in the proceedings of this society, whatever opinions or sentiments I may utter, they are exclusively my own. Whether they are worth any thing or not, no one but myself is at all responsible for them. I have consulted with no person out of this society, and I have especially abstained from all communication or consultation with any one to whom I stand in any official relation. My judgment on the object of this society has been long since deliberately formed. The conclusions to which, after much and anxious consideration, my mind has been brought, have been neither produced nor refuted, by the official station the duties of which have been confided to me.
From the origin of this society, every member of it has, I believe, looked forward to the arrival of a period, when it would become necessary to invoke the public aid in the execution of the great scheme which it was instituted to promote. Considering itself as the mere pioneer in the cause which it had undertaken, it was well aware that it could do no more than remove preliminary difficulties, and point out a sure road to ultimate success; and that the public only could supply that regular, steady, and efficient support, to which the gratuitous means of benevolent individuals would be found incompetent. My surprise has been, that the society has been able so long to sustain itself, and to do so much upon the charitable contributions of good, and pious, and enlightened men, whom it has happily found in all parts of our country. But our work has so prospered and grown under our hands, that the appeal to the power and resources of the public, should be no longer deferred. The resolution which I have risen to propose, contemplates this appeal. It is in the following words:
‘Resolved, that the board of managers be empowered and directed, at such time or times as may seem to them expedient, to make respectful application to the congress of the United States, and to the legislatures of the different states, for such pecuniary aid, in furtherance of the object of this society, as they may respectively be pleased to grant.’
In soliciting the countenance and support of the legislatures of the union and the states, it is incumbent on the society, in making out its case, to show, first, that it offers to their consideration a scheme which is practicable, and secondly, that the execution of the practicable scheme, partial or entire, will be fraught with such beneficial consequences as to merit the support which is solicited. I believe both points to be maintainable.First, it is now a little upwards of ten years since a religious, amiable, and benevolent resident[12] of this city, first conceived the idea of planting a colony,from the United States, of free people of color, on the western shores of Africa. He is no more, and the noblest eulogy which could be pronounced on him would be, to inscribe upon his tomb, the merited epitaph, ‘here lies the projector of the American Colonization Society.’ Amongst others, to whom he communicated the project, was the person who now has the honor of addressing you. My first impressions, like those of all who have not fully investigated the subject, were against it. They yielded to his earnest persuasions and my own reflections, and I finally agreed with him that the experiment was worthy of a fair trial. A meeting of its friends was called, organized as a deliberative body, and a constitution was formed. The society went into operation. He lived to see the most encouraging progress in its exertions, and died in full confidence of its complete success. The society was scarcely formed before it was exposed to the derision of the unthinking; pronounced to be visionary and chimerical by those who were capable of adopting wiser opinions, and the most confident predictions of its entire failure were put forth. It found itself equally assailed by the two extremes of public sentiment in regard to our African population. According to one, (that rash class which, without a due estimate of the fatal consequence, would forthwith issue a decree of general, immediate, and indiscriminate emancipation,) it was a scheme of the slaveholder to perpetuate slavery. The other (that class which believes slavery a blessing, and which trembles with aspen sensibility at the appearance of the most distant and ideal danger to the tenure by which that description of property is held,) declared it a contrivance to let loose on society all the slaves of the country, ignorant, uneducated,and incapable of appreciating the value or enjoying the privileges of freedom.[13] The society saw itself surrounded by every sort of embarrassment. What great human enterprise was ever undertaken without difficulty? What ever failed, within the compass of human power, when pursued with perseverance and blessed by the smiles of Providence? The society prosecuted undismayed its great work, appealing for succor to the moderate, the reasonable, the virtuous, and religious portions of the public. It protested, from the commencement, and throughout all its progress, and it now protests, that it entertains no purpose, on its own authority or by its own means, to attempt emancipation, partial or general; that it knows the general government has no constitutional power toachieve such an object; that it believes that the states, and the states only, which tolerate slavery, can accomplish the work of emancipation; and that it ought to be left to them, exclusively, absolutely, and voluntarily, to decide the question.
The object of the society was the colonization of the free colored people, not the slaves, of the country. Voluntary in its institution, voluntary in its continuance, voluntary in all its ramifications, all its means, purposes, and instruments, are also voluntary. But it was said that no free colored persons could be prevailed upon to abandon the comforts of civilized life and expose themselves to all the perils of a settlement in a distant, inhospitable, and savage country; that, if they could be induced to go on such a quixotic expedition, no territory could be procured for their establishment as a colony; that the plan was altogether incompetent to effectuate its professed object; and that it ought to be rejected as the idle dream of visionary enthusiasts. The society has outlived, thank God, all these disastrous predictions. It has survived to swell the list of false prophets. It is no longer a question of speculation whether a colony can or cannot be planted from the United States of free persons of color on the shores of Africa. It is a matter demonstrated; such a colony, in fact, exists, prospers, has made successful war, and honorable peace,and transacts all the multiplied business of a civilized and christian community.[14] It now has about five hundred souls, disciplined troops, forts, and other means of defence, sovereignty over an extensive territory, and exerts a powerful and salutary influence over the neighboring clans.
Numbers of the free African race among us are willing to go to Africa. The society has never experienced any difficulty on that subject, except that its means of comfortable transportation have been inadequate to accommodate all who have been anxious to migrate. Why should they not go? Here they are in the lowest state of social gradation; aliens—political, moral, social aliens—strangers, though natives. There, they would be in the midst of their friends and their kindred, at home, though born in a foreign land, and elevated above the natives of the country, as much as they are degraded here below the other classes of the community. But on this matter, I am happy to have it in my power to furnish indisputable evidence from the most authentic source, that of large numbers of free persons of color themselves. Numerous meetings have been held in several churches in Baltimore, of the free people of color, in which, after being organized as deliberative assemblies, by the appointment of a chairman (if not of the same complexion) presiding as you, Mr. Vice-president, do, and secretaries, they have voted memorials addressed to the white people, in which they haveargued the question with an ability, moderation, and temper, surpassing any that I can command, and emphatically recommended the colony of Liberia to favorable consideration, as the most desirable and practicable scheme ever yet presented on this interesting subject. I ask permission of the society to read this highly creditable document.
[Here Mr. Clay read the memorial referred to.]
The society has experienced no difficulty in the acquisition of a territory, upon reasonable terms, abundantly sufficient for a most extensive colony. And land in ample quantities, it has ascertained, can be procured in Africa, together with all rights of sovereignty, upon conditions as favorable as those on which the United States extinguish the Indian title to territory within their own limits.
In respect to the alleged incompetency of the scheme to accomplish its professed object, the society asks that that object should be taken to be, not what the imaginations of its enemies represent it to be, but what it really proposes. They represent that the purpose of the society is, to export the whole African population of the United States, bond and free; and they pronounce this design to be unattainable. They declare that the means of the whole country are insufficient to effect the transportation to Africa of a mass of population approximating to two millions of souls. Agreed; but that is not what the society contemplates. They have substituted their own notion for that of the society. What is the true nature of the evil of the existence of a portion of the African race in our population? It is not that there are some, but that there are so many among us of a different caste, of a different physical, if not moral, constitution, who never can amalgamate with the great body of our population. In every country, persons are to be found varying in their color, origin, and character, from the native mass. But this anomaly creates no inquietude or apprehension, because the exotics, from the smallness of their number, are known to be utterly incapable of disturbing the general tranquillity. Here, on the contrary, the African part of our population bears so large a proportion to the residue, of European origin, as to create the most lively apprehension, especially in some quarters of the union. Any project, therefore, by which, in a material degree, the dangerous element in the general mass, can be diminished or rendered stationary, deserves deliberate consideration.
The colonization society has never imagined it to be practicable, or within the reach of any means which the several governments of the union could bring to bear on the subject, to transport the whole of the African race within the limits of the United States. Nor is that necessary to accomplish the desirable objects of domestictranquillity, and render us one homogeneous people. The population of the United States has been supposed to duplicate in periods of twenty-five years. That may have been the case heretofore, but the terms of duplication will be more and more protracted as we advance in national age; and I do not believe that it will be found, in any period to come, that our numbers will be doubled in a less term than one of about thirty-three and a third years. I have not time to enter now into details in support of this opinion. They would consist of those checks which experience has shown to obstruct the progress of population, arising out of its actual augmentation and density, the settlement of waste lands, &c. Assuming the period of thirty-three and a third, or any other number of years, to be that in which our population will hereafter be doubled, if, during that whole term, the capital of the African stock could be kept down, or stationary, whilst that of European origin should be left to an unobstructed increase, the result, at the end of the term, would be most propitious. Let us suppose, for example, that the whole population at present of the United States, is twelve millions, of which ten may be estimated of the Anglo-Saxon, and two of the African race. If there could be annually transported from the United States an amount of the African portion equal to the annual increase of the whole of that caste, whilst the European race should be left to multiply, we should find at the termination of the period of duplication, whatever it may be, that the relative proportions would be as twenty to two. And if the process were continued, during a second term of duplication the proportion would be as forty to two—one which would eradicate every cause of alarm or solicitude from the breasts of the most timid. But the transportation of Africans, by creating, to the extent to which it might be carried, a vacuum in society, would tend to accelerate the duplication of the European race, who by all the laws of population, would fill up the void space.