'It had been properly observed by the chairman, as well as by the gentleman from this District (Messrs Clay and Caldwell) that there was nothing in the proposition submitted to consideration which in the smallest degree touched another very important and delicate question, which ought to be left as much out of view as possible, (Negro slavery.) * * * Mr R. concluded by saying, that he had thought it necessary to make these remarks, being a slaveholder himself, to shew, that, so far from being connected with the abolition of slavery, _the measure proposed would prove one of the greatest securities to enable the master to keep in possession his own property_.'--[Speech of John Randolph at the same meeting.] 'Your committee would not thus favorably regard the prayer of the memorialists, if it sought to impair, _in the slightest degree_, the rights of private property, or the yet more sacred rights of personal liberty, secured to every description of freemen in the United States. 'The resolution of the legislature of Virginia, the subsequent acts and declarations, as well as the high character of the memorialists themselves, added to the most obvious interest of the states who have recently sanctioned the purpose, or recognized the existence of the American Colonization Society, exclude _the remotest apprehension of such injustice and inhumanity_.' --[Report of the committee of the House of Representatives of the United States, on the memorial of the President and Board of Managers of the Colonization Society.--Second Annual Report.] 'An effort for the benefit of the blacks, in which all parts of the country can unite, of course _must not have the abolition of slavery for its immediate object_. NOR MAY IT AIM DIRECTLY AT THE INSTRUCTION OF THE BLACKS. In either case, the _prejudices_ and _terrors_ of the slaveholding States would be excited in a moment; and with reason too, for it is a well-established point, that _the public safety forbids either the emancipation or the general instruction of the slaves_.' * * * 'It [African Colonization] is an enterprise in which _all parts of the country can unite_. The grand objection to every other effort is, that it excites the _jealousies_ and _fears_ of the south. But here is an effort in which the southern people are the first to engage, and which numbers many of their most distinguished men among its advocates and efficient supporters.'--[Review of the Reports of the Society, from the Christian Spectator.--Seventh Annual Report.] 'It will be seen at home and abroad, that the American Colonization Society, while it _properly enough_ stands aloof from the question of slavery, and the abolition of slavery,' &c.--[Report of William McKenney.--Eighth Annual Report.]