commencement, and during our whole progress, and we do now
protest, that we have never entertained the purpose of
intermeddling with the private property of individuals. We know
that we have not the power, even if we had the inclination, to
do so. Your rights, as guarantied by the Constitution, are held
sacred in our eyes; and we should be among the foremost to
resist, as a flagrant usurpation, any encroachment upon those
rights. Our only object, as at all times avowed, is to provide
for the removal to the coast of Africa, with their own consent,
of such persons of color as are already free, and of such others
as the humanity of individuals, or the laws of the different
states, may hereafter liberate. Is there any thing, say they, in
this proposition at war with your interest, your safety, your
honor, or your happiness? Do we not all regard this mixed and
intermediate population of free blacks, made up of slaves or
their immediate descendants, as a mighty and a growing evil,
exerting a dangerous and baneful influence on all around
them?'--[Address of Cyrus Edwards, Esq. of Illinois.--African
Repository, vol. vii. p. 100.]

'It was never the intention of the Society to interfere with the
rights of the proprietors of slaves; nor has it at any time done
so.'--[Address of R. J. Breckenridge of Kentucky.--Idem p. 176.]

'The specific object to which the entire funds of the
Institution are devoted, is simple and plainly unexceptionable
in this respect, that it interferes with no rights of
individuals, and with no law of the land.' * * * 'It embraces in
its provisions only the free. It does not interfere--it desires
not to interfere, in any way, with the rights or the interests
of the proprietors of slaves. _It condemns no man because he is
a slaveholder_; it seeks to quiet all unkind feelings between
the sober and virtuous men of the North and of the South on the
subject of slavery; it sends abroad no influence to disturb the
peace, and endanger the security and prosperity of any portion
of the country.'--[Character and Influence of the Colonization
Society.--African Repository, vol. vii. pp. 194, 200.]

'Can it be a ruthless scheme of political speculation, which
would trample, with rude and unhallowed step, upon the rights of
property, to gratify the visionary and fana