THAT your Memorialists are delegated by a numerous and highly
respectable association of their fellow citizens, recently
organized at the seat of government, to solicit Congress to aid,
with the power, the patronage, and the resources of the country,
the great and beneficial object of their institution; an object
deemed worthy of the earnest attention, and of the strenuous and
persevering exertions, as well of every patriot, in whatever
condition of life, as of every enlightened, philanthropic, and
practical statesman.
It is now reduced to be a maxim, equally approved in philosophy and
politics, that the existence of distinct and separate casts or
classes, forming exceptions to the general system of polity adapted
to the community, is an inherent vice in the composition of
society; pregnant with baneful consequences, both moral and
political, and demanding the utmost exertions of human energy and
foresight to remedy or remove it. If this maxim be true in the
general, it applies with peculiar force to the relative condition
of the free people of colour in the United States; between whom and
the rest of the community, a combination of causes, political,
physical and moral, has created distinctions, unavoidable in their
origin, and most unfortunate in their consequences. The actual and
prospective condition of that class of people; their anomalous and
indefinite relations to the political institutions and social ties
of the community; their deprivation of most of those independent,
political, and social rights, so indispensable to the progressive
melioration of our nature, rendered, by systematic exclusion from
all the higher rewards of excellence, dead to all the elevating
hopes that might prompt a generous ambition to excel; all these
considerations demonstrate, that it equally imports the public
good, as the individual and social happiness of the persons more
immediately concerned, that it is equally a debt of patriotism and
of humanity, to provide some adequate and effectual remedy. The
evil has become so apparent, and the necessity for a remedy so
palpable, that some of the most considerable of the slave-holding
states have been induced to impose restraints upon the practice of
emancipation, by annexing conditions, which have the effect to
transfer the evil from one state to another; or, by inducing other
states to adopt countervailing regulations, and in the total
abrogation of a right, which benevolent or conscientious
proprietors had long enjoyed under all the sanctions of positive
law and of ancient usage. Your Memorialists beg leave, with all
deference, to suggest, that the fairest and most inviting
opportunities are now presented to the general government, for
repairing a great evil in our social and political institutions,
and at the same time for elevating, from a low and hopeless
condition, a numerous and rapidly increasing race of men, who want
nothing but a proper theatre, to enter upon the pursuit of
happiness and independence, in the ordinary paths which a benign
Providence has left open to the human race. Those great ends, it is
conceived, may be accomplished by making adequate provision for
planting, in some salubrious and fertile region, a colony, to be
composed of such of the above description of persons as may choose
to emigrate; and for extending to it the authority and protection
of the United States, until it shall have attained sufficient
strength and consistency to be left in a state of independence.
Independently of the motives derived from political foresight and
civil prudence on the one hand, and from moral justice and
philanthropy on the other; there are additional considerations, and
more expanded views to engage the sympathies and excite the ardour
of a liberal and enlightened people. It may be resolved for our
government (the first to denounce an inhuman and abominable
traffic, in the guilt and disgrace of which most of the civilized
nations of the world were partakers) to become the honourable
instrument, under Divine Providence, of conferring a still higher
blessing upon the large and interesting portion of mankind,
benefited by that deed of justice; by demonstrating that a race of
men, composing numerous tribes, spread over a continent of vast and
unexplored extent, fertility and riches; known to the enlightened
nations of antiquity; and who had yet made no progress in the
refinements of civilization; for whom history has preserved no
monuments of arts or arms; that even this hitherto ill-fated face
may cherish the hope of beholding, at last, the orient star
revealing the best and highest aims and attributes of man. Out of
such materials, to rear the glorious edifices of well ordered and
polished society, upon the deep and sure foundations of equal laws
and diffusive education, would give a sufficient title to be
enrolled among the illustrious benefactors of mankind; whilst it
afforded a precious and consolatory evidence of the all-prevailing
power of liberty, enlightened by knowledge and corrected by
religion. If the experiment, in its remote consequences, should
ultimately tend to the diffusion of similar blessings through those
vast regions and unnumbered tribes yet obscured in primeval
darkness; reclaim the rude wanderer, from a life of wretchedness,
to civilization and humanity; and convert the blind idolater, from
gross and abject superstitions, to the holy charities, the sublime
morality and humanizing discipline of the gospel; the nation, or
the individual, that shall have taken the most conspicuous lead in
achieving the benignant enterprise, will have raised a monument of
that true and imperishable glory, founded in the approbation and
gratitude of the human race; unapproachable to all but the elected
instruments of divine beneficence: a glory with which the most
splendid achievements of human force or power must sink in the
competition, and appear insignificant and vulgar in the comparison.
And above all, should it be considered, that the nation or the
individual, whose energies have been faithfully given to this
august work, will have secured, by this exalted beneficence the
favour of that Being, "whose compassion is over all his works," and
whose unspeakable rewards will never fail to bless the humblest
effort to do good to his creatures.
Your Memorialists do not presume to determine that the views of
Congress will be necessarily directed to the country to which they
have just alluded. They hope to be excused for intimating some of
the reasons which would bring that portion of the world before us,
when engaged in discovering a place the most proper to be selected,
leaving it with confidence, to the better information and better
judgment of your honourable body to make the choice.
Your Memorialists, without presuming to mark out, in detail, the
measures which it may be proper to adopt in furtherance of the
object in view; but implicitly relying upon the wisdom of Congress
to devise the most effectual measures; will only pray, that the
subject may be recommended to their serious consideration, and
that, as an humble auxiliary in this great work, the Association,
represented by your Memorialists, may be permitted to aspire to the
hope of contributing its labours and resources.
BUSH. WASHINGTON, _President_.
With respect to the most eligible situation for the establishment of the
proposed colony, I shall probably more certainly avoid the imputation of
unbecoming assurance, by omitting, for the present, to add any thing
more specific to what I had already expressed (Par. 38, 39, 40) before
the least intimation of the design of forming this Association had come
to my knowledge.
I cannot forbear, however, to remark, that although it would give me
inexpressible pleasure to see the banners of knowledge and rational
religion triumphing over ignorance and superstition, in Africa, as well
as in the many other vast regions of the earth, yet it impresses me that
it will absorb all the benevolence, all the delegated authority, and all
the resources, for a century to come, of both our national and state
legislatures, to reclaim from the awful abyss of ignorance, vice, and
consequential misery, in which thousands and hundreds of thousands of
human beings, of all colours and all extractions, are involved on our
own continent:--That moral contamination on this continent cannot
produce religion and moral purification by a transfer to the continent
of Africa:--And that the great moral debt which this continent has
incurred, is due more specifically to the immense population of the sons
of Africa, who still remain in the shackles of slavery, than to those
who are now enjoying personal liberty, or to the continent of Africa.
I have been assured by citizens of Philadelphia, who were active in
aiding Capt. Cuffee in collecting emigrants for Sierra Leone, that the
injunctions of the British authorities were very positive not to admit
any without testimonials of an irreproachable moral character from
respectable magistrates. After a proper system of African education has
become matured in this country, the seeds of much future good might be
gradually disseminated in Africa, by frequent exportations to that
country of well instructed virtuous school-masters, artisans and
farmers; as the Society of Friends have done, with encouraging prospects
of success, amongst the aboriginal natives of this country.
* * * * *
I will conclude for the present, with a transcript of the Proceedings of
a Meeting of the free Coloured People at Richmond, (Virg.) which have
come to hand (through the "Freeman's Journal,") just in time for
insertion, before this Work is dismissed from the press.--They are
similar to those of a similar Meeting at Georgetown several weeks ago.