We do not desire in the least to minimize the good, either of the intent or result, of the American Colonization Society. It is, however, only just to say that it was not a purely benevolent organization. Its membership included different classes. Of this Jay says: “First, such as sincerely desire to afford the free blacks an asylum from the oppression they suffer here, and by their means to extend to Africa the blessings of Christianity and civilization, and who at the same time flatter themselves that colonization will have a salutary influence in accelerating the abolition of slavery; Secondly, such as expect to enhance the value and security of slave property, by removing the free blacks; and Thirdly, such as seek relief from a bad population, without the trouble and expense of improving it.” As a matter of fact, the American Colonization Society was largely an organization of slave holders. Judge Washington was a southern man; of the seventeen vice-presidents twelve were from slave states; of the twelve managers all were slave holders. Through a period of years the American Colonization Society and the Abolition Societies of the United States waged a furious conflict. The real purpose of the organization was to get rid of the free blacks at any cost, and the attitude of its members toward free blacks was repeatedly expressed in the strongest terms. Thus, General Harper, to whom the names Liberia and Monrovia were due, said: “Free blacks are a greater nuisance than even slaves themselves.” Mercer, a vice-president of the Society, spoke of them as a “horde of miserable people,--the objects of universal suspicion,--subsisting by plunder.” Henry Clay, an original member of the Society and for many years vice-president, said: “Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free colored--contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them.” Again Clay said: “Of all the descriptions of our population, and of either portion of the African race, the free persons of color are by far, as a class, the most corrupt, depraved, and abandoned.” And yet these excellent gentlemen repeatedly stated that in sending free black men to Africa, they were actually combatting the slave trade and Christianizing the natives. Clay himself said, in the same speech in which he referred to the free blacks as “corrupt, depraved, abandoned.” * * * “The Society proposes to send out not one or two pious members of Christianity into a foreign land; but to transport annually, for an indefinite number of years, in one view of its scheme, 6,000, in another, 56,000 missionaries of the descendants of Africa itself, to communicate the benefits of our religion and the arts.” Stripped of all pretense, the facts were that the free blacks of the day were not wanted in America, and that they must somehow be got rid of; accordingly they were dumped upon the African west coast.