Their intercourse, and association with certain classes of
our white population is calculated to produce, and does
produce, in the estimation of your memorialists, serious
evils to the country. But the preceding considerations are
light, and trivial, when compared with the injury sustained
by the slaveholder, from this class of persons, as must be
obvious to every member of your honorable body; Nor should
the eminent danger to our social and political condition, by
their presence, be overlooked, which arises from the fact, that
there neither does, or can exist, between them, and our white
population, any common bond of patriotism or private regard.[67]
The Colonization Society had an intermittent career. A sentiment for
colonization, however, persisted in Tennessee to 1860, but it did not
remain organized. “There is something in this position of the cause
of Tennessee,” said the African Repository in 1846, “which we cannot
understand. There are many friends of colonization in the state. We
have applications from many of the colored people for transportation to
Liberia. Many slaves have been manumitted for the purpose of being sent
there, and yet little or no money can be raised for the advancement of
the enterprise.”[68] The next year the Repository stated that “We are
gratified to perceive that Tennessee is beginning to awake on the subject
of African colonization. Between eighty and one hundred free people of
color are now preparing to emigrate from that state to Liberia. They
wish to go in the vessel that leaves New Orleans in December next; and
the means to take them will probably be raised in the state. A writer in
the Record proposes to be one of fifty who will give one hundred dollars
each to purchase territory to be called Tennessee in Africa.”[69] The
average expense of sending a free negro to Liberia and supporting him for
six months was $50. Shortly after the meeting of 1846, the “Rothschild”
sailed from New Orleans with emigrants from Tennessee for Liberia.
A minister of the Gospel in Tennessee, writing to the Repository in 1847,
advocated colonization for substantially the following reasons:
1. It means ultimately the complete removal of the negro.
2. It benefits the negro by placing him in an environment that
erects no barriers to his development.
3. It affords the Christian an opportunity to give up his
slaves.
4. It lays claim to the noblest feelings of the patriot, and
of the whole-souled philanthropist. Its tendency is good, only
good, and that continually. If it has not accomplished all that
its friends desire, what agency has?
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