hoping for a bloodless and gradual
extinction of slavery, the Civil War carried away the chief element of
interest. Others still, who looked for a ready solution of the Negro
Problem in this country, have gradually lost heart in the face of the
increasing millions of the race. And so, some from one cause, some from
another, have lost interest in colonization and in Liberia, until a time
has come when few have more than the vaguest knowledge of these terms.
Sometimes the voice of contempt is heard; but this is always a proof of
ignorance. Liberia stands forth historically as the embodiment of a
number of ideas, efforts, principles, any one of which ought to secure
at the least our respect, if not our sympathy and enthusiasm.

1. _As a Southern Movement toward Emancipation_.

This thesis will doubtless meet with the most strenuous opposition; but
a careful and impartial study of the writings and addresses of those
most prominent in the movement will convince anyone of their profound
hope that colonization would eventually lead to the extinction of
slavery in the United States. It must be remembered that at the time of
the formation of the Society the pro-slavery feeling in the South was by
no means so strong as it became in later years, when the violence of
Abolition had fanned it to a white heat. Indeed, during the whole period
before 1832 there seems to have been a prevailing sentiment in favor of
emancipation--at least throughout Maryland, Virginia, and North
Carolina. But the condition of the free blacks was notoriously such that
the humane master hesitated to doom his slaves to it by emancipating
them. The colonizationist hoped, by offering to the free Negro an
attractive home in Africa, to induce conscientious masters everywhere to
liberate their slaves, and to give rise to a growing popular sentiment
condemning slavery, which would in time result in its extinction. Of
course there were those in the Society who would not have subscribed to
this doctrine; on the other hand, many held views much more radical. But
it is the men who formed and guided the Society, who wielded its
influence and secured its success, whose opinions must be regarded as
stamping its policy.

The Constitution of the Society did not touch upon this subject. It was
needless to give unnecessary alarm or offense. But when in 1833 the
Maryland Society adopted its Constitution--a much larger and more
explicit one--the attitude taken is bol