360 MR CLAY S ABOLITION-SCHEME. 



influence, to the plan of exporting and colonising the free 

 blacks. &quot; If Virginia,&quot; he says, &quot; and the south, see fit 

 to adopt any proposition to relieve themselves from the 

 free people of colour among them, or such as may be 

 made free, they have my free consent that the Govern 

 ment shall pay them any sum out of the proceeds (of the 

 sale of the territories ceded to the general Government, 

 and which has already produced 80,000,000 of dollars) 

 which may be adequate to the purpose.&quot; Whether, now 

 he is in office, any measure to carry such an appropria 

 tion in Congress may be made, remains yet to be seen.* 



It cannot be that statesmen really look for any relief 

 of the supposed evil to this plan of deportation. The pro 

 posals must rather be made as temporary expedients, 

 and for the purpose of political conciliation. So it must 

 have been also with Mr Clay s plan for the gradual 

 abolition of slavery in Kentucky, that all born after 1860 

 should be free when they reached the age of twenty-five, 

 and that they should then be apprenticed for three years, 

 to raise a sum sufficient to transport them to a colony, to 

 be provided for the purpose. Who can foresee what is 

 to be the state of the Union itself, or the political posi 

 tion of this constantly increasing body of coloured people, 

 in the year 1888, when the first of these freed slaves 

 would be in a condition to be expatriated ? 



There are now in the Union about 3,300,000 slaves, 

 and 500,000 free coloured people. If these increase 

 at the present ratio of 3, or even 2 per cent per annum, 

 they will amount respectively, in 1890, to 1,250,000 of 

 free coloured, and to upwards of 7,000,000 of slaves! The 

 new constitutions adopted in Kentucky and Illinois for 

 bid the immigration and settlement of free people of 

 colour in these States, and order the expulsion of such 



* In the present Congress (1851) Mr Clay has proposed the establish 

 ment of a line of Government emigration steamers to the coast of 

 Africa to promote the emigration of free blacks. 



