A Social History of the American Negro - Being a History of the Negro Problem in the United States. Including - A History and Study of the Republic of Liberia by Benjamin Brawley
page 157 of 545 (28%)
page 157 of 545 (28%)
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guilty of what the safety of society, under actual circumstances,
obliges us to treat as a crime, but which their feelings may represent in a far different shape. They are such as will be a valuable acquisition to the settlement already existing there, and well calculated to coƶperate in the plan of civilization."[4] King accordingly opened correspondence with Thornton and Wedderbourne, the secretaries of the company having charge of Sierra Leone, but was informed that the colony was in a languishing condition and that funds were likely to fail, and that in no event would they be willing to receive more people from the United States, as these were the very ones who had already made most trouble in the settlement.[5] On January 22, 1805, the General Assembly of Virginia passed a resolution that embodied a request to the United States Government to set aside a portion of territory in the new Louisiana Purchase "to be appropriated to the residence of such people of color as have been, or shall be, emancipated, or may hereafter become dangerous to the public safety." Nothing came of this. By the close then of Jefferson's second administration the Northwest, the Southwest, the West Indies, and Sierra Leone had all been thought of as possible fields for colonization, but from the consideration nothing visible had resulted. [Footnote 1: Monroe.] [Footnote 2: Jefferson.] [Footnote 3: _Writings_, X, 297.] [Footnote 4: _Writings_, X, 327-328.] [Footnote 5: _Ibid_., XIII, 11.] |
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