VOL. XXX.]

AN adjourned meeting of friends of the American Colonization So. ciety was held in the First Presby terian Church, Washington, on Friday evening, April 21, 1854, to receive the report of a committee on the subject of establishing a regular line of communication by steam or otherwise between this country and the Republic of Liberia, Hon. Judge WAYNE, of the United States Supreme Court, in the chair.

The proceedings of the evening were introduced with prayer by the Rev. Mr. BUDDINGTON, of Charlestown, Massachu

setts.

The Presiding Officer remarked that the purpose for which the present meeting had been called was so generally known and so well understood that it was scarcely necessary to say anything by way of explanation. He would, however, take leave to observe that the proposed plan for establishing a permanent mode of intercourse between this country and Africa, by means of steam vessels or other ships, to sail at regular stated times, was one which had been so much approved by many gentlemen well able to form a correct opinion on the subject, that he could not but hope it would not only receive the unanimous support of the present meeting, but would commend itself to the patronage of the friends of colonization throughout the Union. When we remember the many discouraging circumstances under which the society had commenced, and against which it had still, in some degree, to struggle, he thought every measure was

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worthy of a careful consideration which might have the tendency of giving it a had done a great deal; it could do much larger measure of the public sympathy. It

more; and he doubted not that the time would come when its establishment would be acknowledged as one of the greatest noble results to which it looked forward events of the present century. But the could not be fully and successfully accomplished without the means of frequent, certain, and regular communication with which should be accomplished by means of steam vessels or other ships, to form a permanent line, with stated times of sailing, publicly known on both sides of the

the African continent: a communication

ocean.

But he would not go into the merits of the proposed plan, because he understood that a series of resolutions had been prepared to be presented by several gentle

men who had consented to address the meeting, and who, it was to be presumed, were fully prepared to explain and to advocate them.

Mr. SEATON, from the committee appointed to draft resolutions for the consideration of the meeting, after

brief explanation of certain modifications made by the committee to the original draft presented to the last meeting, reported the following:

1. Resolved, That in the view of this meeting the American Colonization Society merits the general support of all the good people of these United States; and that the establishment of the Republic of Liberia, secures prospectively immense

benefits to this country and to the African

race.

2. Resolved, That the establishment of regular communication, by steam or otherwise, under the direction of the American Colonization Society, between this country and Liberia, is an object of immediate and vast importance, worthy of the prompt, united, and liberal aid of all its friends.

3. Resolved, That, while this meeting would regard it as eminently wise and judicious for Congress and the State Legislatures to make appropriations in aid of this object, its most confident reliance for success at present is on the benevolence of the country and animated by many recent instances of noble munificence by individuals, and by the recollection of what was done in a few months by our countrymen for the relief of Ireland, they appeal to the people of the United States, at a period of well-nigh unexampled prosperity, vigorously to unite their exertions and raise one hundred thousand dollars or more for the accomplishment of this great work of humanity.

4. Resolved, That it be recommended to the friends of the object in our sister cities throughout the Union to adopt the most effectual measures (by the appointment of committees or otherwise) for securing donations for its accomplishment.

5. Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed by the chairman of this meeting to obtain such aid as our generous fellow-citizens and gentlemen now in this city from different sections of the Union may be pleased to bestow, in order that the work may be commenced in a manner worthy of the character and immortal name of our city and of the capital of the country; and that the said committee be authorized to take measures for obtaining contributions for the same object in other sections of the Union.

The resolutions having been read:

Mr. SEATON said that, with the explanation he had offered of the views of the committee, he should give place to some of the eloquent gentlemen who had kindly consented to speak in support of the object of the meeting; but before doing so begged to add a few words.

It happens (said Mr. S.) that I am, with the exception of but one gentlemen, who is by ill health, I regret to say, prevented from being present, the sole survivor of the few persons who assembled in a hotel in this city in December, 1816, to adopt measures for forming the Coloniza

tion Society which now exists. At that meeting the great statesman of the West, HENRY CLAY, presided-statesman of the West I should not say, for he was truly an American statesman, in the most enlarged sense of the term, whose affections and aims comprehended every section of his country and every interest connected with its honor and welfare.

That meeting formed the nucleus of the American Colonization Society. It was composed of a few gentlemen, conspicuous among whom, besides the illustrious chairman, was, I remember, Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, Elias B. Caldwell, of Washington, and the Rev. Dr. Finley, of New Jersey. Sir, every individual who composed that meeting, with one exception besides myself, has been long since called to another world. Clay is gone, Randolph is gone, Caldwell is gone, and but two remain now to witness, after the expiration of nearly forty years, the success of the great scheme the foundations of which were at that time laid. The patriotic and philanthropic object which they had in view most of them indeed lived to see advancing prosperously. The small seed which was then planted was nourished and watered until it vegetated, and, though its growth was long impeded by difficulties, it struggled on, until it has become a majestic tree, far exceeding in stateliness and grandeur the anticipations of its founders.

Simply and distinctly as its original purpose was announced, the association suffered opposition and obstruction from a misconception of its nature and object. In the South it encountered prejudice from an idea that it was designed, directly or indirectly, to operate on the institution of slavery; in the North it encountered the enmity of fanatics because it disavowed any interference with slavery and refused any abolition purposes; they conceived that philanthropy towards the negro race consisted solely in emancipation. Thus the association long had to make head against these counter influences. But the support of the more enlightened, the more liberal, if not the more humane, fostered the scheme in its infancy, led it on in its youth, until, reaching the vigor of manhood, it is able to stand alone, and the colony of Liberia is now taking its place among independent civilized States. A regular government has long been established there, and their form of government is naturally republican. They, as a matter of course, copied the institutions which they had seen in operation among their

Great Desert. Here the African race, in the climate of its origin, may be expected, in a state of civilization, to find its fullest and most perfect physical and mental development.'

Although the young colony is now competent to maintain itself, its growth needs help. The hundreds who offer or who are

I know, sir, that in its progress the Society has incidentally embraced an action more comprehensive than its original purpose contemplated, and as an incident that should constitute no objection to it in the South. But, apart from this, 1 found and find in its original purpose enough to enlist the sympathies of humanity. In its most restricted operation it proposed to benefit a degraded race by removal to a more congenial sphere, and by that removal to confer a public good on this country and an inappreciable ultimate blessing on the benighted and barbarous land to which they were to be transplanted. It was to try the great experiment, by one operation, of relieving our country of an evil and humanity of a reproach, and at the same time founding on an injured, barbarous continent a free, civilized, christian commonwealth.

This was a practical humanity, and the experiment has been crowned with a remarkable success. In the language of an able public journal, it has transplantad the institutions, the habits of thought and action, the language and the literature of our country to Central Africa, to take, we doubt not, permanent root, and to obtain, in the end, a complete victory over the barbarism of the country. The present age has few things more worthy of attention than the growth of this negro commonwealth, with its institutions modelled strictly after our own, gradually increasing its population, gradually extending its borders, every year becoming more respected and feared by the barbarian tribes which surround it. Let a few generations pass, and, in all probability, it will possess an immense extent of sea coast on the Gulf of Guinea, with dominions reaching eastward to Abyssinia and northward to the

require the establishment of an adequate and regular communication between the two continents. This regular communication has never yet been provided, and it is to take measures for this important object that the present meeting has been call

The Colonization cause now numbers amongst its friends the great body of the wise and good of this country and of every section of it; and with such favor and support it cannot fail to advance, with an accelerated pace, to the most entire success.

The Rev. Dr. BALCH rose and said that

it gave him sincere pleasure to see gentlemen occupying high positions in the community present on this occasion and ready to give their sanction to the plans and efforts of the Colonization Society. There was no time when such a sanction from

gentlemen bearing the scales of justice and imbued with a generous and extended philanthropy could be more welcome or more important. He had promised to submit a few remarks to the meeting here convened, but he could assure gentlemen that they should be as few as possible; for the objects of all popular speaking were to convince and to persuade; but in looking over this respectable assembly he did not see one whose mind, in reference to the general objects of the meeting, needed either to be convinced or persuaded. But the definite object immediately to be acted on required to be stated, as it had already been, justly and properly, from the Chair. The practical object in view was suitably to affect the tone and just sentiment of the country, so as to call out the benevolence and enterprise of our people, that the Society might be enabled to compass the special purpose of facilitating the means of intercourse between these United States and the western coast of Africa.

Dr. B. proceeded to remark that in his juvenile days he recollected nothing in classic story which so seized upon and interested his imagination as that famous expedition of the Greeks known as the Argonautic. The boat Argo had left the shores of Greece on a voyage to Colchis to bring back from thence the much de

sired golden fleece. Critics had been greatly divided in opinion as to what had been meant by this golden fleece. It was supposed by some that it was a fleece stretched across certain auriferous brooks in Colchis for the purpose of collecting the golden pebbles borne down by the stream; but others had given to the story an allegorical interpretation, and had contended that it was the sight of new and interesting objects, the treasures of knowledge and the advantages of commerce, which constituted this memorable fleece. If the latter opinion were correct, he thought that something like the benefits secured for their country by these argonauts might be obtained in our own case by the establishment of a regular, certain, and rapid intercourse between a far distant and highly interesting country like Africa and our own land. The people of the United States from small beginnings had now grown into a vast empire; and they had it now in their power to try anew the expedient of the ancient Greeks, by sending a boat not to bring back, but to confer blessings and advantages of the highest order to the rude tribes of men scattered over

the blighted continent of Africa. We could thus send to them law, which had been well denominated the voice of virtue and of order, and whose conservative and happy influence prevaded all the complex relations of civic society. We could send them education, that plastic former of the human mind. We could, to a certain extent, send them literature, that fertile source of pleasure and instruction. We could send them our arts and our christianity, that divine gift whose power and resistless force had revolutionized the whole Roman Empire, and planted its triumphs beside the throne of the Cæsars. Gifts like these would prove in Africa as they had throughout the habitable world, the best means of assuaging human sorrow, taming the rudeness of the savage man, and softening and embellishing the entire condition of human society. It was true that at present Liberia was not fully prepared to relish the charm which mental cultivation and its consequent refinement threw around life. He had to do only with its stern realities, and all her pursuits were controlled by the necessities of her condition. But let us look back to our own comparatively humble origin, and to the feeble germs of civilization planted on these shores during the reign of James the First. We had endured a long and laborious servitude while hewing away the wilderness and establishing our home in a

wild and hostile clime; but see how it had been succeeded by ease, abundance, and every elegant art; and so it would be with the infant republic now planted on the dark shore of the African continent.

For these reasons, as well as others which might be assigned, Dr. B. was ready to concur in every measure to secure the interesting object which had convened them this evening. He believed in his honest conscience that it was our duty to make the attempt proposed. The power of steam was felt over the entire world, in the Baltic, in the Thames, in the Clydes, on the lakes of Switzerland, on Lake Leman, every where. It possessed and manifested a kind of omnipresent power, and therefore the plan contemplated its adoption in the mode of intercourse to be established between the two continents. Let us make the experiment, and see whether the people of the United States would not give us their aid and effectual co-operation in a design which promised so much good to the colony we had planted and fostered till it had become a State, as well indeed as to the entire African coast and continent. While we sent them benefits such as those he had referred to, they could send us some precious fleece in return. It was gratifying to witness the growing products of their fertile soil. Then they were copying diligently our own theories of government, and were already in the enjoyment of many of our free institutions. We had ourselves been but copyists of more ancient nations. There had at one time existed in Greece not less than thirty-two distinct republics, including the Ionic on the Asiatic continent. We were ourselves now the exemplar for nations yet in their forming state. They had also adopted. our christianity and had conceived the noble purpose of spreading it over the entire extent of that dark continent. The rays of its divine light were already striking far into the interior.

Dr. B. said he went heart and hand, from the inmost depths of his soul, for the colonization cause, and especially for the measure proposed by the resolutions. Indeed in reviewing his own past life, he was astonished to reflect how little labor he had bestowed on a cause he so entirely approved. It was true he had acted as a sort of missionary in its behalf; he had traversed the mountain peaks of Virginia from morning light to the evening shade in endeavoring to advance its interests; but all the exertions and all the advance which had yet been made seemed as nothing when he looked at the consequences likely to result

from the adoption of the plan now proposed. It could not but be followed by results the most benign.

The Rev. Mr. GURLEY said he had not risen to make a speech, but because it had been the opinion of the committee that one of the resolutions they had prepared ought to be presented to the meeting separately from the rest. This resolution he now rose to submit. It was known to some that he had been many years somewhat connected with the cause of the American Colonization Society, and he had always believed it to be competent to the General Government to appropriate money from the Treasury in aid of that cause, nor could he believe that it would be long before something of that kind would be done. But it would be unwise in the Society to wait for any such result; its claims had been pressed before both the General and several of the State Governments, and he regretted to say thus far without success. Meanwhile there was a pressing need for a regular and certain mode of communication with Liberia and the adjacent coast. One of the officers of the Society, whose labors, zeal, and devoted services in its behalf had been invaluable, had expressed to Mr. G. the deepest interest in the scheme now under consideration, and the same feeling he knew possessed and animated our excellent secretary. Every one knew what had already been accomplished by the public liberality to the colonization cause, and he still looked with confidence to the beneficence of American Christianity in its behalf. He had calculated that there were in these United States at least

two hundred churches who could well afford to give a thousand dollars each to make their several pastors directors for life. Were that accomplished what a mass of moral power would be secured in aid of every noble design for Africa's welfare! If three or four of the societies in this District would make a commencement he had not a doubt their example would be followed by all our great cities both to the North and to the South.

Resolved, That it be respectfully suggested to the officers of wealthy churches in our cities and large towns to invite a eontribution from each of one thousand dollars towards the enterprise, (by which their pastors or others whom they might be pleased to honor might be constituted directors for life of the Society,) and to all churches or religious societies to make such contributions as their means may permit to the object.

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The Rev. STUART ROBINSON said that, on reflection, after having promised to attend here to-night, he considered it a most unreasonable request to make by any man that he should speak fifteen or twenty minutes on colonization," as Mr. Gurley This is not one of the twenty-minute subhad requested him to do on this occasion. jects. Originating at first with the great minds who founded this republic-great in its own intrinsic nature, great in all its general views, great in all its detailed branches-this scheme of African coloni

zation has not a single minor twenty-minute point in it. Like the huge mastodon, or those remains of a former giant animal existence, the "disjecta membra," a single limb, a horn, a tusk of the mighty skeleton, is a full load for an ordinary man. It was not his purpose to demand more time, however, but, instead of a speech on the subject, to talk twenty minutes about this specific scheme with a view to which we

now meet.

There is more involved here than a mere This is a question of building a boat. germinal proposition and a great representative idea, this regular line of communication with Liberia. A great man has said "words are things." It is true also that things are often words, great expressive words and one of this sort is this thing of a regular packet-ship to Liberia. This project is representative of a great step onward, implying at the same time a great step, the great step already made. An empire has been founded, an asylum opened. Now, shall we be able to bring that asylum practically within reach of those for whom it was intended? On this question we propose to go before the christian and philanthropic people of the country. Of this general purpose, to make the asylum in Liberia accessible to the colored man, this project to "build a boat" is the representative. What are the prospects of success? Rather what are the necessary elements of success in such a call upon the public? It must be shown that the cause in whose behalf we appear is important; that it has the elements of character to strike favorably the public mind; that it will likely be perseveringly carried on in spite of obstacles; that it is feasible, not visionary; that the liberal aid of the benevolent is absolutely necessary to accomplish its results.

Now as to the importance of this general scheme of colonization, the more reflecting of the people need little proof. In fact, this American Colonization Society in this regard is itself most remarkably one of