APPENDIX.

COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY SAMUEL BURCH.

FEBRUARY 22d, 1830.-Printed by order of the House of Representatives, and referred to Mr. Mercer, Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts, Mr. Rose, Mr. Williams, Mr. Vance, Mr. Denny, and Mr. Kincaid.

MEMORIAL OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY.

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:

The memorial of the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States, by their Board of Managers,

RESPECFULLY REPRESENTS:

That, in the year 1816, a number of respectable individuals formed themselves into a society, at the seat of the National Government, for the purpose of promoting the voluntary colonization of the free people of color of the United States, in Africa, or elsewhere; and soon afterwards adopted preparatory measures for the accomplishment of their purpose.

With this view, suitable persons were sent to the Southwestern coast of Africa, with instructions to visit the British settlement of Sierra Leone, and other places in the vicinity, to select a proper location for the proposed colony, and to ascertain how far reliance might be placed on the favorable disposition of the native tribes; and from these commissioners, a report was received, of the most encouraging character. After some further inquiries and preparatory efforts, a small colony was sent out in the year 1820, and placed on Sherbro Island, as a temporary residence, until possession could be obtained of a neighboring tract of land on the continent, which the natives had promised to sell. The performance of this promise was delayed and evaded, under various pretexts, for a considerable time, during which, the health of the colony suffered very materially from the low, flat, and marshy ground of Sherbro, where they were compelled to continue their residence much longer than had been anticipated.

At length, however, the agents of the Colonization Society were enabled to effect the purchase of an extensive territory at the mouth of Montserado river, including the cape and bay of that river, and there the colony has been established. The soil is fertile, the land elevated nearly one hundred feet above the sea, the climate as healthy as any in Africa, and the anchorage in the bay and roadstead not inferior to any on the whole coast.

The distance from the colony of Sierra Leone is between two and three hundred miles. The natives in the vicinity are divided into a great number of small and nearly independent tribes; and, being but slightly held together by any superior authority, may be considered as wholly incapable of uniting, to any serious extent, for purposes of hostility. In a single instance, an attack was made on the colony, while in its feeblest condition; but the

facility with which it was repelled, renders the future security of the colony from similar attacks, unquestionable, under its probable increase of popula-tion, and the improved means of defence with which it has already been provided. The conduct of the natives, indeed, is now of the most peaceable and friendly character; and their kindness and confidence has been considerably increased, by the return of several individuals of distinction among the neighboring tribes, who had been taken from a Spanish slave ship; and, after receiving in America the most friendly attention, were restored by the American Government to the homes from which they had been torn.

Notwithstanding the difficulties inseparable from the opening and first settlement of distant and uncultivated regions; difficulties increased, on the present occasion, by the scanty means to be drawn from the only sources of supply open to the society; the colony has annually increased in population, and now contains more than twelve hundred individuals. A government has been established, republican in its principles, (as far as the unformed character of the colony will permit) regular and efficient in its operation; and, thus far, providing the necessary securities for life, liberty, and property. One hundred and fifty miles of coast are under the colonial jurisdiction; and no less than eight important stations, on this line, are occupied by traders from the colony. From this territory, the slave trade is believed to be nearly, if not quite, banished; and the natives begin to engage in agriculture, and carry on a valuable commerce with the inhabitants of Liberia. The trade of the colony has increased with remarkable rapidity, and many of the settlers have each acquired by it, in the course of three or four years, property to the amount of several thousand dollars.

Many plantations have been cleared and put under cultivation, and so fertile is the soil, that an annual product will soon, doubtless, be realized, adequate to the supply, not only of those who have already emigrated, but of those also, who may be induced hereafter to seek for happiness and independence in the land of their fathers, and a home of their own.

Schools have been established, and every child in the colony enjoys their benefits. Fortifications, and many public buildings, have been erected; a spirit of enterprise prevails; and peace, order, and contentment, are the evidences of general prosperity.

For more full and detailed information concerning the colony, the Society refer to the accompanying extracts from the reports of the Board of Managers. (Doc. A.)

Such is a general outline of the operations of the society, and such the present condition of the colony. In the progress that has been made, your memorialists have found nothing to discourage them, and from the actual state of things which they have thus been enabled to present to the view of your honorable body, they derive the pleasing anticipation of being able to demonstrate to the world, that they are engaged in an enterprise neither unwise, nor impracticable. In the course of a few short years, a small number of individuals, actuated only by the most philanthropic motives, possessing no political power, and destitute of all pecuniary resources, except such as were to be found in the charity, the benevolence, and the patriotism of their fellow-citizens, and the efforts of Congress to abolish the African Slave Trade, have succeeded in exploring a distant coast, in overcoming, in a great measure, the very natural but very powerful prejudices of the community in which they live, and in transporting to the Western

shores of a remote continent, and maintaining, in a state of perfect security, a colony of several hundred of the free colored population of their country. But a period has at length arrived, when the society would no longer, be justified in relying on its own limited resources for accomplishing what yet remains of its patriotic undertaking.

The colony that has been settled, small as it is, is yet too large to be governed by a distant and unincorporated society. The acknowledged imperfections of human nature, and the uniform history of mankind, evince the dangers necessarily connected with the sudden transition of any people from a state of moral and political degradation to one of unqualified freedom. If, with such evidences before it, the society should leave its infant settlement to the inadequate protection to be derived from its own resources, it would be justly chargeable with all the evils that must necessarily result from the defective powers of control with which it is invested, for tranquillity at home, or security from foreign danger.

In reference, too, to the great objects to be accomplished, it is now time to look to other means than such as can be supplied by individual charity. The extent to which reliance may be placed on this resource, has been, in a great measure, ascertained; and if, at the very commencement of the undertaking, aided, as it has been, by all the charms of novelty, means have been furnished for removing only a few hundred out of the many thousand that are annually added to the free colored population of the country, it is obvious that a further dependence on this resource would be little less than an abandonment of the enterprise. The evil to be removed is continually increasing; and with every exertion on the part of the Colonization Society, unless access can be had to other resources, each succeeding year must find it more remote from the object of its pursuit. Under these circumstances, the society has felt itself justified in asking the immediate and effectual interposition of the Government of the country. The object it proposes to accomplish, is the removal to Africa, with their own consent, of such people of color within the United States as are already free, and of such others as the humanity of individuals, and the laws of the different States, may hereafter liberate.

Such an object, connected as it is with the justice, the humanity, and the welfare of our country, and calculated to elevate the character, and to improve the condition, of a degraded portion of the human race, cannot fail to be considered as one of deep and general interest; and the wisdom of the National Legislature may be safely relied on, for, suggesting and applying the necessary means for its accomplishment. Your memorialists confidently trust, that, in this explicit avowal of the real and only design of the American Colonization Society, will be found its best vindication from the contradictory imputations cast upon it, of attempting, at the same moment, and by the same process, to interfere, on the one hand, with the legal obligations of slavery, and, on the other, to rivet the chains more firmly on its present subjects. The society has, at all times, recognised the constitutional and legitimate existence of slavery; and, whatever may have been thought of its unhappy influence on the general interests of the country, the government of the Union has never been looked to as the proper or authorized instrument for effecting its removal.

But to that Government it has been thought that resort might be had for furnishing the means of voluntary emigration to another description of

population, exercising a confessedly injurious influence on every portion of our country, but especially so on those parts of it in which slavery still exists. And if, in relation to the latter, the effects of such a measure should be, to afford to individual humanity a wider field for action, and to the State authorities an opportunity and an inducement to encourage rather than to forbid emancipation within their respective limits, your memoralists have hoped that this consideration alone, instead of prejudicing their present application, would operate as one of its most powerful recommendations. And that such would be the case with the nation, they have every reason to believe.

Pecuniary aid is now afforded to the operations of the society, by an annuity from the State of Maryland; and the Legislature of Virginia, besides its early, explicit, and repeated requests to the United States, to open a channel for the removal of her free people of color, has, on two several occasions, granted similar aid to this society.

The District of Columbia, the territory of which is situated between these commonwealths, and placed, by their consent and by the Constitution of the United States, under the exclusive legislation of Congress, has no other tribunal to which it can appeal for like assistance, in removing from its bosom the same description of persons.

There can be no State of the Union, where these persons constitute, as it is believed they do in all, a distinct caste from the rest of the community, that must not perceive the expediency of pursuing the same policy.

The reception which the Colonization Society has met, in almost every instance, from the people, bespeaks a deep and general interest in its success. And the resolutions (see document B) which have been adopted by a very large proportion of the Legislatures of the States, in favor of the plan of colonizing the free people of color, indicate it as an object entitled, in every respect, to the aid and patronage of a Government, whose peculiar province it is, in the exercise of its legitimate powers, as the exclusive Legislature of the District of Columbia, to promote the welfare of the people subject to its sole authority, by legislation as unrestricted and discretionary as can be exercised by any State government over its citizens; and, in its capacity of a General Government, under the limitations of the Constitution, to suppress the African slave trade, by all the means, direct or auxiliary, conducive to that great end of general policy and public morality-a power claimed and practically exercised by the Government, in a spirit manifesting a sense of duty as high and imperative as the power is unquestionable. To that Government the question is now fairly submitted, in the fullest confidence that it will receive the consideration due to its importance, and a decision worthy of the Legislature of a free, a great, and an enlightened

nation.

Your memorialists trust, that, in the connexion between their leading purpose, and the utter extinction of the African slave trade, there will be found a sufficient apology for calling your earnest attention to the present extent of that traffic, and the hopelessness of success to the very limited ef forts now directed towards its abolition.

The United States are bound, not only by the general claims of humanity on every enlightened nation, but by positive treaty stipulations with Great Britain, to neglect no adequate and legitimate means of attaining this object. It is for the wisdom of Congress to determine whether any such means can

be provided, and to weigh the obligations, both moral and political, whi urge their energetic application.

F. S. KEY,

W. JONES,
JAMES LAURIE,
S. B. BALCH,
O. B. BROWN,
WM. HAWLEY,
THOMAS HENDERSON,

J. N. CAMPBELL,
W. W. SEATON,

S. SMITH,
WM. RYLAND,

R. R. GURLEY,

JOHN UNDERWOOD.

A.

POPULATION OF THE COLONY.

About 1,200, exclusive of near four hundred re-captured Africans, whe have been transferred to the Colony by the Government of the United States

FORM OF GOVERNMENT.

At the time of the departure of the first expedition to Africa, in 1820, concise Constitution of ten articles was adopted by the managers for the government of the settlement, and all emigrants took an oath to support it. By this Constitution, the society is authorized, either directly or through its agents, to make all needful rules and regulations for the govern ment of the settlement, and to appoint all officers in the colony. Slavery, within its limits, is absolutely prohibited. Every settler, when arriving at the age of 21, is bound to take an oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; and the common law, as in force and modified in the United States, and applicable to the situation of the new colony, was to be enforced.

Before and during the year 1824, a spirit of insubordination had been evinced in the colony, and, in some instances, leading individuals had manifested an utter disregard of the authority of the agent.

For this and other reasons, the present secretary of the society was commissioned to visit the colony, and make such arrangements as might be necessary to restore order, and secure the permanent peace and harmony of the settlement. He was joined by the late excellent Mr. Ashmun at the Cape de Verds, (to which islands he had retired for a short season, for the recovery of his strength, which had been greatly impaired,) and, with his most valuable counsel and assistance, the present plan of civil government for the colony of Liberia was adopted in the presence and with the unanimous consent of the colonists, August 19, 1824, and the officers appointed under it, August 20th, 1824. The great object aimed at in that form of Government, was, to confirm and augment the power of the agency; and yet, to admit the existence of officers from among the colonists, and to allow, on political questions, a full expression of the popular opinion. This plan having, after the experience of several months, proved itself well