“I know it was then urged, as it has been since, that other places might have been selected with equal advantage. I do not concur in that opinion. Look at the expense alone. It has been stated in your report that the sum of fifty dollars is sufficient to cover the expense of transporting one emigrant to Liberia, and of maintaining him there for six months after his arrival. To what other position in the known world could he be sent at so cheap a rate? Not to the Pacific; not to Oregon; not to Mexico. Then consider the advantages of this position in point of navigation: remember the shortness of the voyage. When these things are duly considered, it must be evident that to no _other spot on the face of the globe could the free colored people be sent with so much propriety as to the coast of Africa_. Besides, in any other place that might be selected, you would deprive yourselves of accomplishing those high moral and religious objects which, in Africa, may be so confidently hoped for. “But, again, it has been said that the object of carrying all the free colored race from this country to Africa is one which the Government itself, with all its means, could not effect. Now, on that point, let me state a fact by way of reply. If I am not mistaken, the immigration from abroad into the port of New York alone, in the course of the last year, was fully equal to the annual increase of the free colored population of the Union, and yet all that was done voluntarily, and in most cases without any, or with very little aid. The fact rests on the great motive which, to a greater or less extent, governs all human action. Why is it that the Germans and the Irish have thus flocked to our shores in numbers to meet the annual increase of our free colored people not only, but, as I believe, that of the slave population also? They come in obedience to one of the great laws of our nature; they have come under that efficient motive which propels men to all enterprises—the desire to better their condition. A like motive will sway the free blacks when enlightened as to the real facts of the case. If they reach the shores of Africa, whether by their own means, or by the aid and agency of others, their position will be physically, morally, and politically better than by any possibility it ever can be here. It is not our office to attempt impracticabilities; to amalgamate two races which God himself, by a difference of color, besides other inherent distinctions, has declared must be separate, and remain separate, from each other. And if such be of necessity their condition here, to send them to Africa, not by coercion, but with their own free consent, is surely the best practicable mode of doing them good. And here I would say to those in both extremes of opinion and of feeling on the subject of slavery—I would say to all men—why should the free people of color of these United States not have the option of removing to Africa, or remaining where they are, just as