t
tracts of unappropriated lands in the United States, and realizing
that the number of free blacks daily increased, and that the territory
open to them for residence was greatly restricted owing to the
prohibitory legislation existing in many States, this Society, at its
annual meeting, held in Frankfort, October 18 and 19, 1815, petitioned
Congress that a suitable territory "be laid off as an asylum for all
those negroes and mulattoes who have been, and those who may hereafter
be, emancipated within the United States; and that such donations,
allowances, encouragements, and assistance be afforded them as may be
necessary for carrying them thither and settling them therein; and
that they be under such regulations and government in all respects as
your wisdom shall direct."[241]

Another manifestation of sentiment for removing the Negroes to a
distant territory is found in a series of resolutions passed by the
Virginia Assembly on December 21, 1816. These resolutions were
introduced and sponsored by Charles Fenton Mercer, a slaveholder. In
the spring of 1816, he accidentally discovered the secret action of
the Assembly, taken in 1800, just after the Negro insurrection of that
year, the upshot of which was two resolutions directing the Governor
to correspond with the President of the United States for the purpose
of securing somewhere a suitable territory for the colonization of
emancipated slaves and free Negroes[242]. It was too near the end of
the session when Mercer found these resolutions for him to present a
program to the Assembly. In the interim, however, Mercer broke the bar
of secrecy, interviewed Francis S. Key, of Georgetown, and Elias B.
Caldwell, of Washington city, and with their advice drew up some
resolutions to introduce in the Assembly at its next session.
Moreover, while in the North that summer for the purpose of the
recuperation of his health, having made known his plan, he received
"promises of pecuniary aid, and of active cooperation."[243] At the
next session of the Virginia Assembly, Mercer introduced his
resolutions, the purport of which asked the national government to
find a territory on the North Pacific on which to settle free blacks
and those afterwards emancipated in Virginia. These resolutions having
been amended by the Senate to read on the North Pacific or the African
Coast were passed by the Assembly on December 21, 1816, the very day
on which the first public meeting of deportationi