West Tennessee was more interested in colonization than either East or Middle Tennessee. In fact, colonization was largely anti-free-negro rather than anti-slavery, especially so in West Tennessee, where it was regarded as a means of eliminating the free negro from among the slaves. West Tennessee was not nearly so anti-slavery in sentiment as East Tennessee. There was organized a separate colonization society at Memphis, June 12, 1848, largely through the efforts of the Presbyterian Church. It adopted a constitution of six articles, and elected a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and twelve directors who constituted a board of managers. It was an auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. It was to accomplish its object “by the contribution of money to the Parent Society by the dissemination of intelligence concerning the operations, objects, and prosperity of the colonization enterprise.”[70] A campaign was waged in Memphis for funds to support the society.[71] The Tennessee Colonization Society was incorporated on February 8, 1850. Philip Lindsey, president of the University of Nashville, was made its president. It now became a corporation and a body politic. It could sue and be sued, and was permitted to receive gifts of money, goods, and real estate, provided the total value of such gifts did not exceed $10,000 in any one year. It used its own seal.[72] In 1852, Frederick P. Stanton, of Tennessee, in an address before the American Colonization Society, advocated the removal of the free negroes to Africa. He believed this step would eliminate sectionalism and largely solve the problem of the runaway which, he thought, was mainly due to the influence of the free negro over the slave. He was also apprehensive of the political influence which the free negroes might come to have.[73] He maintained that the national government could remove the negroes as well as the Indians.[74] Senator John Bell, of Tennessee, in a letter to James R. Doolittle, October 18, 1859, advocated the acquisition by Congress of some territory south of the United States to be set aside as an asylum for emancipated negroes. He believed that such a settlement of the problem would be a “concordant” between the North and the South.[75] In 1860, Hon. N. G. Taylor, of Tennessee, in an address before the American Colonization Society, advocated the colonization of the free blacks for moral and commercial reasons. He believed that the negro should be returned to his native home and that Africa colonized by American negroes would naturally become a great commercial ally of the United States.[76]