184 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to be brought into that kind of contact in that place. . . . The fun- 

 damental idea of a prosperous republic must be a homogeneity of its 

 people." 



Colonization as a remedy has had many strong advocates. As 

 early as 1800 the Assembly of Virginia, in secret session, instructed 

 the Governor to correspond with the President with the object of pro- 

 curing a colony to which the negroes could be sent. Jefferson be- 

 gan the correspondence. The Legislature resumed the question, and 

 expressed its preference for "Africa or any of the Spanish or 

 Portuguese settlements in South America " as the place " to which 

 free negroes or mulattoes, and such negroes or mulattoes as may be 

 emancipated," might be sent or choose to remove. In 1805 the 

 members of Congress were instructed to endeavor to procure suitable 

 territory in Louisiana. In 1811, being asked his opinion as to a 

 settlement on the coast of Africa, Jefferson replied that "nothing 

 is more to be wished than that the United States would themselves 

 undertake to make such an establishment on the coast of Africa." 

 In 1813 the Legislature openly and almost unanimously adopted, for 

 the third time, resolutions similar to those of 1800. The same year 

 the Colonization Society was formed, out of which grew the Republic 

 of Liberia. President Lincoln, in his first annual message, Decem- 

 ber, 1861, referring to the two classes of liberated persons that might 

 be thrown upon Congress for their disposal, recommended " that in 

 any event steps be taken for colonizing both classes at some place or 

 places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, 

 too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could 

 not be included in such colonization." Congress responded by vot- 

 ing one hundred thousand dollars for the voluntary emigration of 

 freedmen from the District of Columbia to Haiti or Liberia, and 

 later, in July, 1862, gave five hundred thousand dollars for the 

 colonization of negroes in some tropical country beyond the limits 

 of the United States. Mr. Lincoln continued to favor the policy of 

 removal to another country, and five days after signing the above act 

 he read to his Cabinet a proposed order for " the colonization of 

 negroes in some tropical country." Burdened with this great ques- 

 tion, amid the exigencies of the mighty war, he continued to push 

 the matter, and had Secretary Seward send a circular letter to 

 England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark, with regard to 

 colonizing the negroes in some of their tropical possessions. Offers 

 came from the Danish West Indies, Dutch Surinam, British Guiana, 

 Honduras, Haiti, New Granada, and Ecuador. Mr. Lincoln con- 

 sidered the offers from New Granada and an island off Haiti, and 

 even sent a colony to the latter. Again, in his annual message in 

 1862, he argued for colonization, and asked for an appropriation, but, 



