CHAPTER XV 

 THE LOAN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 



PRESIDENT WARNER ' was defeated in the election of 

 1867, and on January ist, 1868, his place was taken 

 by another mulatto President, James Sfrigg Payne, a 

 candidate of the Republicans. Payne's tenure of the Presidency 

 was uneventful, and on January ist, 1870, he was succeeded by 

 the first Whig President, Edward James Roye, a pure-blooded 

 Negro. 



Towards the close of the 'sixties there was much discussion 

 in Liberia on the question of public works and the means of 

 opening up the interior to a more profitable and extended com- 

 merce ; for, owing to the restrictive law already described, 

 foreigners — that is to say, non-Africans or persons not of Negro 

 race — could not trade away from the ports of entry. In fact, 

 whilst the Constitution and legislation of Liberia were very 

 naturally directed towards keeping this small portion of Africa 

 open to the black man's enterprise, the civilised fringe of this 

 Negro republic nevertheless stagnated, and the volume of trade 

 was very small compared with that of the possessions of Britain 

 and France on the West Coast of Africa. Perhaps also Liberia, 

 now an independent State of twenty years' existence, thought it 

 was time she should imitate all the other independent States of 

 the world and have a loan and a public debt. 



' Warner's sons and daughters, unlike the descendants of other Americo- 

 Liberians, are said to have adopted the life of the indigenous natives. 



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