TO JARED SPARKS.

Monticello, February 4, 1824.

Dear Sir,

I duly received your favor of the 3th, and with it the last number of
the North American Review. This has anticipated the one I should receive
in course, but have not yet received, under my subscription to the new
series. The article on the African colonization of the people of color,
to which you invite my attention, I have read with great consideration.
It is, indeed, a fine one, and will do much good. I learn from it more,
too, than I had before known, of the degree of success and promise of
that colony.

In the disposition of these unfortunate people, there are two rational
objects to be distinctly kept in view. 1. The establishment of a colony
on the coast of Africa, which may introduce among the aborigines the
arts of cultivated life, and the blessings of civilization and science.
By doing this, we may make to them some retribution for the long course
of injuries we have been committing on their population. And considering
that these blessings will descend to the '_nati natorum, et qui
nascentur ab illis_,' we shall in the long run have rendered them
perhaps more good than evil. To fulfil this object, the colony of
Sierra Leone promises well, and that of Mesurado adds to our prospect of
success. Under this view, the Colonization Society is to be considered
as a missionary society, having in view, however, objects more humane,
more justifiable, and less aggressive on the peace of other nations,
than the others of that appellation.

The second object, and the most interesting to us, as coming home to
our physical and moral characters, to our happiness and safety, is to
provide an asylum to which we can, by degrees, send the whole of that
population from among us, and establish them under our patronage and
protection, as a separate, free, and independent people, in some country
and climate friendly to human life and happiness. That any place on the
coast of Africa should answer the latter purpose, I have ever deemed
entirely impossible. And without repeating the other arguments which
have been urged by others, I will appeal to figures only, which admit
no controversy. I shall speak in round numbers, not absolutely accurate,
yet not so wide from truth as to vary the result materially. There are
in the United States a million and a half of people of color in
slavery. To send off the whole of these at once, nobody conceives to be
practicable for us, or