“It is now nearly thirty years since Mr. Finley, Mr. Caldwell, and some other gentlemen, met by agreement with a view to form a Colonization Society. I was one of that number. We did not intend to do more or less than establish on the shores of Africa a colony, to which free colored persons with their own voluntary consent might go. There was to be no constraint, no coercion, no compulsory process to which those who went must submit: all was to be perfectly voluntary and unconstrained in any manner or degree. Far, very far, was it from our purpose to interfere with the slaves, or to shake or affect the title by which they are held in the least degree whatever. We saw and were fully aware of the fact that the free white race and the colored race never could live together on terms of equality. We did not stop to ask whether this was right or wrong: we looked at the fact, and on that fact we founded our operations. I know, indeed, that there are men, many of them of high respectability, who hold that all this is prejudice; that it should be expelled from our minds, and that we ought to recognise in men, though of different color from ourselves, members of our common race, entitled in all respects to equal privileges with ourselves. This may be so according to their view of the matter; but we went on the broad and incontestible fact, that the two races could not, on equal terms, live in the same community harmoniously together. And we thought that the people of color should be voluntarily removed, if practicable, to their native country, or to the country at least of their ancestors: there they might enjoy all those blessings of freedom and equality of condition which to them were impossible here. Our object, let me repeat it, was limited to the free; we never thought of touching in any manner the title to slave property. We hoped to be able to demonstrate the practicability of colonizing them; and when that should have been demonstrated, those who owned slaves might avail themselves of it or not—might send liberated slaves to Africa or not, precisely as they pleased. All our purpose was to establish, if we could, a colony of free colored men, and thus to demonstrate to the world that colonization was practicable.