WASHINGTON, Thursday, August 14, 1862.

This afternoon the President of the United States gave an audience to a
committee of colored men at the White House. They were introduced by
Rev. J. Mitchell, Commissioner of Emigration, E. M. Thomas, the chairman,
remarked that they were there by invitation to hear what the Executive had
to say to them.

Having all been seated, the President, after a few preliminary
observations, informed them that a sum of money had been appropriated by
Congress, and placed at his disposition, for the purpose of aiding the
colonization, in some country, of the people, or a portion of them, of
African descent, thereby making it his duty, as it had for a long time
been his inclination, to favor that cause. And why, he asked, should the
people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this
country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration.
You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference
than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right
or wrong I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great
disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffer very greatly, many
of them, by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a
word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at
least, why we should be separated. You here are free men, I suppose.

[A voice--"Yes, sir!"]

Perhaps you have long been free, or all your lives. Your race are
suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people.
But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being
placed on an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of
the advantages which the other race enjoys. The aspiration of men is to
enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent not
a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. Go
where you are treated the best, and the ban is still upon you. I do not
propose to discuss this, but to present it as a fact, with which we have
to deal. I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact about which we all
think and feel alike, I and you. We look to our condition. Owing to the
existence of the two races on this continent, I need not recount to you
the effects upon white men, growing out of the institution of slavery.

I believe in its general evil effects on the white race. See our present
condition--the coun