History of Liberia | Page 4

Cuffee, the son of a well-to-do Massachusetts freedman, had
become by his talents and industry a prosperous merchant and
ship-owner. Stimulated by the colony at Sierra Leone, and longing to
secure liberty to his oppressed race, he determined to transport in his
own vessels, and at his own expense, as many as he could of his
colored brethren. Accordingly, in 1815, he sailed from Boston with
about forty, whom he landed safely at Sierra Leone. He was about to
take over on a second voyage a much larger number, when his
benevolent designs were interrupted by death.
It will be observed that the colonization plans hitherto unfolded had all
been proposed for some missionary or similar benevolent object, and
were to be carried out on a small scale and by private means. It is now
time to consider one proposed from a widely different standpoint. As a
political measure, as a possible remedy for the serious evils arising
from slavery and the contact of races, it is not surprising to find
Thomas Jefferson suggesting a plan of colonization. The evils of
slavery none ever saw more clearly. "The whole commerce between
master and slave," he quaintly says, "is a perpetual exercise of the most
boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn
to imitate it." And again, "With what execration should the statesman
be loaded, who, permitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on the
rights of the other, transforms these into despots and those into enemies,
destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other....
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."[3] Yet his
equally clear perception of the evils sure to result from emancipation
immediate and unqualified, makes him look to colonization as the only
remedy. "Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state?" he
asks, "Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites, ten thousand
recollections by the blacks of the injuries they have sustained; new
provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many

other circumstances, will divide us into parties and produce
convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of
the one or the other race." After the lapse of a century how prophetic
these words sound! Jefferson believed then that by colonization slavery
was to be abolished. All slaves born after a certain date were to be free;
these should remain with their parents till a given age, after which they
should be taught at public expense agriculture and the useful arts.
When full-grown they were to be "colonized to such a place as the
circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out
with arms, implements of the household and handicraft arts, pairs of the
useful domestic animals, etc.; to declare them a free and independent
people, and extend to them our alliance and protection till they have
acquired strength."
Such in outline was Jefferson's contribution to the colonization idea. Its
influence was unquestionably great: the "Notes on Virginia," privately
circulated after 1781, and at length published in 1787, went through
eight editions before 1800, and must have been familiar to nearly all of
those concerned in the formation of the Colonization Society.
Clearer still must the details of Jefferson's project have been in the
minds of the members of the Virginia Legislature in 1800, when, after
the outbreak of a dangerous slave conspiracy in Richmond, they met in
secret session to consult the common security. The resolution which
they reached shows unmistakably Jefferson's influence. With the
delicate if somewhat obscure periphrasis in which legislation
concerning the Negro was traditionally couched, they enacted: "That
the Governor be requested to correspond with the President of the
United States on the subject of purchasing lands without the limits of
this State whither persons obnoxious to the laws or dangerous to the
peace of society may be removed."[4] An interesting correspondence
ensued between Monroe, who was then Governor, and Jefferson. Both
regarded the idea as something far more important than a mere penal
colony. Monroe, too, saw in it a possible remedy for the evils of slavery,
and refers to the matter as "one of great delicacy and importance,
involving in a peculiar degree the future peace, tranquillity, and
happiness" of the country. After much discussion Africa was selected
as the only appropriate site, and approved by another Act of the
Legislature. Jefferson lost no time in attempting to secure land for the

colony, but his efforts met with no success. After a discouraging
repulse from Sierra Leone, and the failure of several half-hearted
attempts to obtain a footing elsewhere, the whole matter was allowed to
sink into abeyance. For years a pall of secrecy concealed the