d a committee to draw up
and present a memorial to Congress requesting measures for securing a
suitable territory for a settlement, and another committee to prepare
a constitution and rules to govern the association when formed.[285]
Having taken this action, they decided to adjourn until the following
Saturday, December 28, at six o'clock.

According to this arrangement "citizens of Washington, Georgetown, and
Alexandria, and many others" met in the Hall of the House of
Representatives of the United States and adopted a Constitution.[286]
By provision of the Constitution the Association was "The American
Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States"
and its exclusive object "to promote and execute a plan for colonizing
(with their consent) the Free People of Color residing in our Country,
in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall deem most
expedient." Every citizen of the United States was eligible to
membership upon the payment of one dollar, the annual dues, or as
amended a few days later, thirty dollars for life membership.
Provision was made for the usual officers and for the formation of
auxiliary societies to this parent organization.[287] The first annual
meeting was fixed for Wednesday, January 1, 1817.

On this date the colonizationists met in Davis's Hotel, Henry Clay
again presiding. Bushrod Washington was elected President of the
Society, equally noted men were chosen for the other officers,[288]
and on motion of the Honorable John C. Herbert of Maryland, Reverend
Robert Finley was "requested to close the meeting with an address to
the Throne of Grace"[289] which he did, it being "his last public act
in the last public meeting"[290] for the organization and success of
the American Colonization Society.

HENRY NOBLE SHERWOOD, PH.D.

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL,
LA CROSSE, WIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[234] For an extended account of the plans proposed before 1816, for
removing the colored population, see H. N. Sherwood, "Early Negro
Deportation Projects," in the _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_,
II, 485 ff.

[235] _Niles' Register_, XVII, 30. Some of the slaves of James Smith,
a Methodist preacher of Virginia, had accompanied their quondam master
to Ohio in 1798. Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society,
Publications, XVI, 348-352.

[236] Documentary History of American Industrial Society, II, 161,
162.

[237] This story has been told