be freed.[8]

Taking up this question in his first annual message, he said: "It
might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people
already in the United States could not so far as individuals may
desire be included in such colonization," (meaning the colonization of
certain persons who were held by legal claims to the labor and service
of certain other persons, and by the act of confiscating property used
for insurrectory purposes had become free, their claims being
forfeited). "To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the
acquiring of territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond
that to be expended in the territorial acquisition. Having practiced
the acquisition of territory for nearly sixty years, the question of
constitutional power to do so is no longer an open one to us.... On
this whole proposition, including the appropriation of money with the
acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to absolute
necessity--that without which the government itself cannot be
perpetuated?"[9]

Congress responded to this recommendation in separate acts, providing
in an act, April 16, 1862, for the release of certain persons held to
service or labor in the District of Columbia, including those to be
liberated by this act, as may desire to emigrate to the Republic of
Hayti or Liberia, or such other country beyond the limits of the
United States, as the President may determine, provided the
expenditure does not exceed one hundred dollars for each
immigrant.[10] The act provided that the sum of $100,000 out of any
money in the Treasury should be expended under the direction of the
President to aid the colonization and settlement of such persons of
African descent now residing in the District of Columbia.[11] It
further provided that later, on July 16, an additional appropriation
of $500,000 should be used in securing the colonization of free
persons.[12] A resolution directly authorizing the President's
participation provided "that the President is hereby authorized to
make provision for the transportation, colonization and settlement in
some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States, of such
persons of the African race, made free by the provisions of this act,
as may be willing to emigrate, having first obtained the consent of
the government of said country to their protection and settlement
within the same, with all the rights and privileges of freemen."[13]
The consent of