f the object of this meeting,
to touch or agitate in the slightest degree, a delicate
question, connected with another portion of the colored
population of our country. It was not proposed to deliberate
upon or consider at all, any question of emancipation, or that
which was connected with the abolition of slavery. It was upon
that condition alone, he was sure, that many gentlemen from the
South and West, whom he saw present, had attended, or could be
expected to co-operate. It was upon that condition only, that he
himself had attended.'--[Speech of Mr Clay before the Society,
Jan. 1, 1818.--Second Annual Report.]

'It had been properly observed by the chairman, as well as by
the gentleman from this District (Messrs Clay and Caldwell) that
there was nothing in the proposition submitted to consideration
which in the smallest degree touched another very important and
delicate question, which ought to be left as much out of view as
possible, (Negro slavery.) * * * Mr R. concluded by saying, that
he had thought it necessary to make these remarks, being a
slaveholder himself, to shew, that, so far from being connected
with the abolition of slavery, _the measure proposed would prove
one of the greatest securities to enable the master to keep in
possession his own property_.'--[Speech of John Randolph at the
same meeting.]

'Your committee would not thus favorably regard the prayer of
the memorialists, if it sought to impair, _in the slightest
degree_, the rights of private property, or the yet more sacred
rights of personal liberty, secured to every description of
freemen in the United States.

'The resolution of the legislature of Virginia, the subsequent
acts and declarations, as well as the high character of the
memorialists themselves, added to the most obvious interest of
the states who have recently sanctioned the purpose, or
recognized the existence of the American Colonization Society,
exclude _the remotest apprehension of such injustice and
inhumanity_.'

--[Report of the committee of the House of Representatives of
the United States, on the memorial of the President and Board of
Managers of the Colonization Society.--Second Annual Report.]

'An effort for the benefit of the blacks, in which all parts of
the country can unite, of course _must not have