In 1829 the American Colonization Society worked out a plan for state societies. The state societies were to be auxiliaries to the national society, and were themselves to be a confederacy of county societies which in turn were to be composed of town and district societies. The town and district societies were to hold regular annual meetings and send delegates to the annual meeting of the state society, which was to be represented at the annual meeting of the national society.[52] In accordance with this plan Mr. Josiah F. Polk, agent for the American Colonization Society for the states of Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and Alabama, on December 21, 1829, organized, at Nashville, the Tennessee Colonization Society, consisting of sixteen members. A president and one vice-president were elected. The membership soon increased to seventy-three and a fund of one hundred dollars was collected.[53] The society held its first meeting on January 1, 1830, and elected a complete set of officers. Rev. Philip Lindsey, D.D., president of the University of Nashville, was made president of the society; R. H. McEwen, recording secretary; Henry A. Wise, corresponding secretary; and Orville Ewing, treasurer. Six vice-presidents and a board of six managers, consisting of prominent citizens, were elected.[54] The society at this time numbered about one hundred and twenty members[55] and contained twenty auxiliaries.[56] These auxiliaries had a large membership, and a list of strong officers of the most prominent people of the state. Andrew Jackson was much interested in colonization. He was vice-president of the American Colonization Society from 1819 to 1822.[57] Polk, in reporting on his work to the American Colonization Society, in 1829, said that much might be expected from the Tennessee Society.[58] Henry A. Wise, who was secretary of the Tennessee Colonization Society, made a very flattering report of its work to the national society in 1830. “We may expect,” said the African Repository, “benefits of the most important character, from the energy and liberality of the citizens of Tennessee. It cannot be forgotten that the legislature of this state was among the first to express its approbation of our scheme, as meriting the countenance and aid of the National Government.”[59] “Believing as I do,” said a Tennessee correspondent of the African Repository, “that under Providence it is the only feasible and judicious plan to ameliorate the condition of the free people of color in these states, and that it is a cause in which patriotism and humanity, are largely embarked, I shall do all I can to aid its progress; and I hear, with pleasure, of its continued prosperity.”[60] Polk, in his report of 1830, states that “The colored population is considered by the people of Tennessee and Alabama in general, as an immense evil to the country—but the free part of it, by all, as the greatest of all evils.”[61] A correspondent of the African