“My proposition is simply to provide for the peaceful emigration of all those free colored persons of African descent who may desire so to emigrate to some place in Central or South America.... I believe the time has ripened for the execution of the plan originated by Jefferson in his day, agreed in by Madison and Monroe and all the earlier and better statesmen of the Republic, both North and South.”--_Speech of Senator Doolittle._ * * * * * “Instead, therefore, of being an expense to the nation, the foundation of such a colony would be the grandest commercial enterprise of the age.... “Are the young merchants of Boston and of America indifferent to an enterprise which would give to our commerce, without a rival, such an empire as that to which I have pointed?--an empire not to be won by cruelty and conquest, but by peaceful and benignant means, and by imparting to others the inestimable blessings of liberty which we enjoy, and removing from our midst the only cause which threatens the prosperity and stability of the Union....”--_Speech of Hon. F. P. Blair, Boston._ * * * * * “It is my intention to use every effort to give practical effect to the propositions submitted to Congress, and I believe that the colored people themselves can give very efficient aid in the matter. If they will only let it be known that they approve, and are themselves willing to act upon the proposition, it will give it a great impulse.”--_Hon. F. P. Blair--Letter to J. D. Harris._ * * * * * “The only mode in which we can relieve our country, relieve the blacks and whites, and provide separate homes for them, is by some scheme _which will meet the approbation of both--one which the parties themselves will execute_.”--_Hon. Preston King._ * * * * * “Among all feasible things, there is nothing that in my judgment would so much promote a peaceful abolition of slavery as your son’s plan.”--_Hon. Gerrit Smith to F. P. Blair, Sen._ * * * * * “The feeling of the free blacks in relation to African colonization is no criterion by which to judge of the success of American intertropical emigration.... I am confident that with proper inducements to be held out before them in regard to security of liberty and property, and prospects for well-doing, I could muster two hundred emigrant families or about one thousand colored persons annually for the next five years, of the very best class for colonial settlement and industry, from various parts of the United States and Canada, who would gladly embark for homes in our American tropics.”--_Rev. J. T. Holly._ * * * * *