in a ratio of about 46,000 per annum. It may, perhaps, now be estimated at not less than 50,000. It was said on that occasion, 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 fir d 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 coninued during a second term of duplication the population 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.' To transport to Africa fifty thousand persons would cost one million of dollars, upon the estimate before stated. One million of dollars applied annually, during a period of sixty or seventy years, would, at the end of it, so completely drain the United States of all that portion of their inhabitants as not to leave many more than those few who are objects of curiosity in the countries of Europe. And is that sum, one-tenth part of what the United States now annually appropriates as a sinking fund, without feeling it, and which will soon not be requisite to the extinction of the national debt, capable of producing any suffering or creating any impediment in the execution of other great social objects of the American communities? What a vast moral debt to Africa, to the world, and to our common God, should we not discharge by the creation of a new sinking fund of such a paltry sum? "This estimate does not comprehend any indemnity to the owners of slaves, for their value, if they are to be purchased for the purpose of Colonization. It is presumable that States or individuals, no longer restrained from the execution of their benevolent wish to contribute their endeavors to blot out this great stain upon the American name, by the consideration of the difficulty of a suitable provision for liberated slaves, when they perceive the plan of Colonization in successful operation, will voluntarily manumit many, for the purpose of their emigration. One of the latest numbers of the National Intelligencer states the fact, that a recent offer has been made of 2,000 slaves to the Society, to be sent to Liberia, which the want of funds alone prevents its accepting. If the reasoning before employed, founded upon the decline in value of that description of property, be correct, many will be disposed to emanci pate from less disinterested motives. From some or all these sources, and from the free colored population, an amount may be annually obtained for the purposes of Colonization, equal to the number of fifty-six thousand which has been suppoced. As the work of Colonization advances, the ability of the European race to promote it will increase, both from the augmentation of its numbers and its wealth, and the relative diminution of the negro race; and, in the course of the progress of its execution, it will not be found a burdensome appropriation of some of the revenue of the people of the United States to purchase slaves, if colonists cannot otherwise be obtained. Meanwhile, it affords cause of the sincerest gratification, that, in whatever extent the scheme of African Colonization is executed, good is attained without a solitary attendant misfortune. "I could not discuss the question of the extent of the respective powers of the various Governments of this Union, without enlarging this address, already too much prolonged, in a most unreasonable degree. That the aggregate of their total powers is fully adequate to the execution of the plan of Colonization, in its greatest extent, is incontestable. How those powers have, in fact, been divided and distributed between the General Government and State governments, is a question for themselves to decide, after careful investigation and full deliberation. We may safely assume that there are some things which each system is competent to perform, towards the accomplishment of the great work. The General Government can treat with foreign Powers of the security of the colony, and with the Emperor of Morocco, or other African Princes or States, for the aequisition of territory. It may provide in the colony an asylum for natives of Africa introduced into the United States in contravention to their laws, and for their support and protection, as it has done. And it may employ portions of our navy, whilst engaged in practising to acquire the needful discipline and skill, or in proceeding to their appointed cruising stations, to transport emigrants from the United States to the Colony. Can a nobler service, in time of peace, be performed by the National Flag, than that of transporting under its Stars and Stripes, to the land of their ancestors, the sons of injured Africa, there to enjoy the blessings of our pure Religion and real Liberty? It can employ the Colony as the best and most efficacious instrument of suppressing the infamous slave trade. 66 Any of the States may apply, in their proper spheres, the powers which they possess and the means at their command. They may remove restraints upon emancipation, imposed from a painful conviction that slavery, with all its undisputed ills, was better than manumission without removal. Such of them may as can, safely and justly, abolish slavery, and follow the example of Pennsylvania, New York, and other States. Any of them can contribute some pecuniary aid to the object. And if an enlargement of the constitutional powers of the General Government be necessary and expedient, they are competent to grant it. * * * "Throughout the entire existence of Christianity, it has been a favorite object of its ardent disciples and pious professors to diffuse its blessings by converting the heathen. This duty is enjoined by its own sacred precepts, and prompted by considerations of humanity. All Christendom is more or less employed on this subject at this moment in some part or other of the earth. But it must, in candor, be owned that, hitherto, missionary efforts have not had a success corresponding in extent with the piety and benevolence of their aim, or with the amount of the means which have been applied. Some new and more efficacious mode of accomplishing the beneficent purpose must be devised, which, by concentrating energies and endeavors, and avoiding loss in their diffuse and uncombined application, shall ensure the attainment of more cheering results. The American Colonization Society presents itself to the religious world as uniting those great advantages. Almost all Africa is in a state of the deepest ignorance and barbarism, and addicted to idolatry and superstition. It is destitute of the blessings both of Christianity and civilization. The Society is an instrument which, under the guidance of Providence, with public assistance, is competent to spread the lights of both throughout its vast dominions. And the means are as simple as the end is grand and magnificent. They are to deviate from the practice of previous Missionary Institutions, and employ as agents some of the very brethren of the heathen sought to be converted and brought within the pale of civilization. The Society proposes to send not one or two pious members of Christianity into a foreign land, among a different and perhaps a suspicious race, of another complexion, but to transport annually, for an indefinite number of years, in one view of its scheme, six thousand-in another, fifty-six thousand missionaries, of the descendants of Africa itself, with the same interests, sympathies, and constitutions of the natives, to communicate the benefits of our religion and of the arts. And this Colony of Missionaries is to operate not alone by preaching the doctrines of truth and of revelation, which, however delightful to the ears of the faithful and intelligent, are not always comprehended by untutored savages, but also by works of ocular demonstration. It will open forests, build towns, erect temples of public worship, and practically exhibit to the native sons of Africa the beautiful moral spectacle and the superior advantages of our religious and social systems. In this unexaggerated view of the subject, the Colony, compared with other Missionary plans, presents the force and grandeur of a noble steamer majestically ascending, and with ease subduing, the current of the Mississippi, in comparison with the feeble and tottering canoe, moving slowly among the reeds that fringe its shores. In holds up the image of the resistless power of the Mississippi itself, rushing from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and marking its deep and broad and rapid course through the heart of the continent, thousands of miles, to the Gulf of Mexico, in comparison with that of an obscure rivulet winding its undiscernable way through dark and dense forests of luxuriant prairies, in which it is quickly and forever lost." * * The views of General HARPER, as expressed in his able letter to the first Secretary of the Society and printed in its first Report, agree with those of Mr. CLAY. Says General HARPER: "I may perhaps on some future occasion develop a plan, on which I have long meditated, for colonizing gradually, and with the consent of their owners, and of themselves, where free, the whole colored population, slaves and all ; but this is not the proper place for such an explanation, for which indeed I have not the time now. But it is an essential part of the plan, and of every such plan, to prepare the way for its adoption and execution, by commencing a Colony of blacks, in a suitable situation and under proper management. This is what your Society propose to accomplish. Their project therefore, if rightly formed and well conducted, will open the way for this more extensive and beneficial plan of removing, gradually and imperceptibly but certainly, the whole colored population from the country, and leaving its place to be imperceptibly supplied, as it would necessarily be, by a class of free white cultivators. In every part of the country this operation must necessarily be slow. In the southern and southwestern States it will be very long before it can be accomplished, and a very considerable time must probably elapse before it can even commence. will begin first, and be first completed, in the middle States, where the evils of slavery are most sensibly felt, the desire of getting rid of the slaves is already strong, and & greater facility exists of supplying their place by white cultivators. From thence it will gradually extend to the south and south west, till, by its steady, constant, and imperceptible operation, the evils of slavery shall be rooted out from every part of the United States, and the slaves It themselves, and their posterity, shall be converted into a free, civilized, and great nation, in the country from which their progenitors were dragged, to be wretched themselves and a curse to the whites. “This great end is to be attained in no other way than by a plan of universal Colonization, founded on the consent of the slaveholders and of the colonists themselves. For such a plan, that of the present Colonization Society opens and prepares the way, by exploring the ground, selecting a proper situation, and planting a colony, which may serve as a receptacle, a nursery, and a school for those that are to follow. It is in this point of view that I consider its benefits as the most extensive and important, though not the most immediate. * ** "The greatest benefit, however, to be hoped from this enterprise, that which, in contemplation, most delights the philanthropic mind, still remains to be unfolded. It is the benefit to Africa herself, from this return of her sons to her bosom, bearing with them Arts, Knowledge, and Civilization, to which she has hitherto been a stranger. Cast your eyes, my dear sir, on this vast continent; pass over the northern and northeastern parts, and the great desert, where sterility, ferocious ignorance, and fanaticism, seem to hold exclusive and perpetual sway; fix your attention on Soudan, and the widely extended regions to the south; you see there innumerable tribes and nations of blacks, mild and humane in their dispositions, sufficiently intelligent, robust, active, and vigorous, not averse to labor or wholly ignorant of agriculture, and possessing some knowledge of the ruder arts which minister to the first wants of civilized man; you see a soil generally fertile, a climate healthy for the natives, and a mighty river, which rolls its waters through vast regions inhabited by these tribes, and seems destined by an All Wise and Beneficent Providence, one day to connect them with each other, and all of them with the rest of the world, in the relations of commerce and friendly intercourse. What a field is here presented for the blessings of civilization and Christianity, which Colonies of civilized blacks afford the best and probably the only means of introducing. These Colonies, composed of blacks already instructed in the arts of civilized life and the Truths of the Gospel, judiciously placed, well conducted, and constantly enlarged, will extend gradually into the interior, will form commercial and political connexions with the native tribes in their vicinity, will extend those connexions to tribes more and more remote, will incorporate many of the natives with the Colonies, and in their turn make establishments and settlements among the natives, and thus diffuse all around the arts of civilization, and the benefits of literary, moral, and religious instruction. "Ages, indeed, may be required for the full attainment of these objects ; untoward events or unforeseen difficulties may retard or defeat them; but the prospect, however remote or uncertain, is still animating, and the hope of success seems sufficient to stimulate us to the utmost exertion. How vast and sublime a career does this undertaking open to a generous ambition, aspiring to deathless fame by great and useful actions! Who can count the millions that in future times shall know and bless the names of those by whom this magnificent scheme of beneficence and philanthropy has been conceived, and shall be carried into execution? Throughout the widely extended regions of middle and southern Africa, then filled with populous and polished nations, their memories shall be cherished and their praises sung, when other States, and even the flourishing and vigorous nation to which they belong, now in the flower of youth, shall have run their round of rise, grandeur, and decay, and like the founders of Palmyra, Tyre, Babylon, Memphis, and Thebes, shall no longer be known, except by vague reports of their former greatness, or by some fragments of those works of art the monuments of their taste, their power, or their pride, which they may leave behind. "It is in connexion, my dear sir, with this great operation that I consider your proposed Colony of free blacks as most interesting and important. It ought to be the first step in this splendid career, and ought to be located with that view. In choosing a situation for it, therefore, the greatest regard ought to be had to its future connexion with the Niger." MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, A DOCUMENT OF GREAT PHILANTHROPIC INTEREST. Fellow citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable bodies, which shall be substantially as follows: 66 Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system." If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the approval of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it does command such approval, I deem it of importance that the States and people immediate interested should be at once distinctly notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider whether to accept or reject it. The Federal Government would find its highest interest in such a measure, as one of the most efficient means of self-preservation. The leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the hope that this Government will be forced to acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected region, and that all the slave States north of such parts will then say: The Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose to go with the Southern section. To deprive them of this hope substantially ends the rebellion, and the initiation of emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it. The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation; but that while the offer is equally made to all, the more northern shall, by such initiations, make it certain to the more southern that, in no event will the former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy. I say initiation, because, in my judgment, gradual, and not sudden emancipation is better for all. In the mere financial or pecuniary view, any member of Congress, with the census-tables and treasury reports before him, can readily see for himself how very soon the |