“An immense market may be opened for the exchange and sale of the innumerable products of the skill and manufactures of our people. Africa is estimated to contain one hundred and sixty millions of inhabitants. Liberia enjoys a favorable geographical position. She is protected by the great Powers of Europe. The Liberians have constitutions adapted to the climate, and a similarity of color with the natives. They will penetrate the interior with safety, and prosecute their trade in the bays and rivers of the coast, without suffering from the diseases which are so fatal to the white man. Liberia is the door of Africa, and is destined to develope the agricultural and commercial resources of that continent, besides being the means of regenerating her benighted millions.” The foregoing remarks have related entirely to the advantages of the proposed measure. It is possible some scruples may be entertained in regard to its constitutionality. This, the committee think, cannot be reasonably doubted. The Government has already adopted this mode of providing a powerful steam navy, at the same time giving incidental but important encouragement to great commercial interests. In this instance, the effectual suppression of the slave trade and the withdrawal of the African squadron by the substitution of a number of mighty steamers regularly plying to that coast, afford a motive and a justification which do not exist in regard to any one of the lines already established. It was the opinion of Mr. Jefferson that the United States had power to establish colonies for the free blacks on the coast of Africa, and he desired its exercise. Chief Justice Marshall and Mr Madison concurred in this opinion. And it is to be observed that the first purchase in the colony of Liberia was made by the Government of the United States. The opinions of the leading jurists of our day do not appear to differ from those of the great founders of the Constitution, who believed not only that indirect aid to the cause of colonization may be given in accordance with that instrument, but that the Government has power to establish the colonies themselves. The proposition of the committee does not, by any means, go to this extent. It goes no further than recently adopted and still existing operations of the Government, while it is believed to rest upon far higher and better grounds of support.