MEMORIAL

Of the President and Board of Managers of the American Society for Colonizing the free people of colour of the United States.

January 14, 1817.
Read and ordered to lie upon the table.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled‑

The memorial of the president and board of managers of the "American Society for Colonizing the free people of colour of the United States,"

RESPECTFULLY SHOWS...

     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 force, 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 presevering exertions of every patriot, in whatever condition of life, as of every enlightened, philanthropic, and practical statesman.

     It is now reduced to a maxim, equally approved in philosophy and practice, 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 baleful consequences, both moral and political, and demanding the utmost exertion of human energy and foresight to remedy or remove. 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 consquences. 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 slaveholding States have been induced to impose restraints upon the practice of emancipation, by annexing conditions, which have no effect but 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 parts 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 sympahties and excite the ardour of a liberal and enlightened people. It may be reserved for our government, (the first to denounce an inhuman and abominable traffick, 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 enlighted 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 race, 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 edifice 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 consquences, 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 moral 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 perfect 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.