Colonization as a remedy has had many strong advocates. As early as 1800 the Assembly of Virginia, in secret session, instructed the Governor to correspond with the President with the object of procuring a colony to which the negroes could be sent. Jefferson began the correspondence. The Legislature resumed the question, and expressed its preference for "Africa or any of the Spanish or Portuguese settlements in South America" as the place "to which free negroes or mulattoes, and such negroes or mulattoes as may be emancipated," might be sent or choose to remove. In 1805 the members of Congress were instructed to endeavor to procure suitable territory in Louisiana. In 1811, being asked his opinion as to a settlement on the coast of Africa, Jefferson replied that "nothing is more to be wished than that the United States would themselves undertake to make such an establishment on the coast of Africa." In 1813 the Legislature openly and almost unanimously adopted, for the third time, resolutions similar to those of 1800. The same year the Colonization Society was formed, out of which grew the Republic of Liberia. President Lincoln, in his first annual message, December, 1861, referring to the two classes of liberated persons that might be thrown upon Congress for their disposal, recommended "that in any event steps be taken for colonizing both classes at some place or places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could not be included in such colonization." Congress responded by voting one hundred thousand dollars for the voluntary emigration of freedmen from the District of Columbia to Haiti or Liberia, and later, in July, 1862, gave five hundred thousand dollars for the colonization of negroes in some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States. Mr. Lincoln continued to favor the policy of removal to another country, and five days after signing the above act he read to his Cabinet a proposed order for "the colonization of negroes in some tropical country." Burdened with this great question, amid the exigencies of the mighty war, he continued to push the matter, and had Secretary Seward send a circular letter to England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark, with regard to colonizing the negroes in some of their tropical possessions. Offers came from the Danish West Indies, Dutch Surinam, British Guiana, Honduras, Haiti, New Granada, and Ecuador. Mr. Lincoln considered the offers from New Granada and an island off Haiti, and even sent a colony to the latter. Again, in his annual message in 1862, he argued for colonization, and asked for an appropriation, but, under the passions of the terrible conflict then raging, the Congress, instead of heeding the request, repealed the former act appropriating five hundred thousand dollars.