[14] It appears that only one band had tried to escape prior to July
18 or 19.

[15] Sparks to Uhl, June 24, 1895, and enclosure, _ibid._, pp. 6-11.

[16] _Ibid._, pp. 12, 16.

[17] _Ibid._, pp. 17-20.

[18] Sparks to Uhl, June 4, 1895, and enclosure, pp. 13-14.

[19] _Ibid._, p. 65.

[20] Sparks to Uhl, June 24, 1895, and enclosure, pp. 42, 65-66.

President Cleveland, in his message of December 2, 1895, urged an
appropriation for the reimbursements of the railroads, and on January
27, 1896, he sent a special message to Congress with reference to the
matter. Richardson, _Messages and Papers_, IX, 634, 664.

An appropriation for urgent deficiencies which was passed on February
26, 1896, contained the following interesting item: "For the payment
of the cost of transportation furnished by certain railway companies
in connection with the failure of the scheme for the colonization of
negroes in Mexico, necessitating their return to their homes in
Alabama, ... five thousand and eighty-seven dollars and nine cents."
29 _U. S. Statutes at Large_, p. 18.

DOCUMENTS

JAMES MADISON'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE NEGRO

Like most of the Revolutionary leaders, James Madison, moved by the
social and political upheaval of that time thought seriously of the
liberation of the slaves, largely for economic reasons. He believed
that the country should depend as little as possible on the labor of
slaves, knowing that their labor was not sufficiently skillful to
furnish the basis for diversified industry. He considered slavery "the
great evil under which the nation labors."[1] On another occasion he
referred to it as a "portentous evil,"[2] and on still another "an
evil, moral, political, and economic, a sad blot on our free
country."[3] When, therefore, petitions for the abolition of slavery
were presented to the legislature of Virginia, he did not frown upon
the proposal as a mischievous agitation as did so many others. Madison
looked forward to the eventual extermination of slavery through
gradual methods of preparation for emancipation. Feeling that the
thorough incorporation of the blacks into the community of whites
would be prejudicial to the interests of the country, he had no other
thought than that of deportation as a correlative of emancipation.
Along with a number of others he discussed the proposal to set apart
certain western public lands for the transplantation of the blacks
from the slave holding States to fr