Communication from the President of the Maryland State Colonization Society.

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BY THE SENATE,

February 27tli, 1860.
Bead, and 200 copies ordered to be printed.

COMMUNICATION

rnoM

THE PRESIDENT

Off THB

MARYLAND STATE COLONIZATION SOCIETY.

COxM MUNI CATION.

To the Eon. John B. Brooke,

President of the Senate of Maryland :

Sm : The Board of Managers of the Maryland State Coloni-
zation Society, believing that some misapprehension exists as
to the management of their affairs during the last two years,
and especially in regard to the expenditures supposed to have
heen made during that period through their agency of the
funds heretofore appropriated by the honorable the General
Assembly, have instructed me most respectfully to submit for
the information of the honorable body over which you preside,
the following statement :

It is unnecessary to refer with particularity to the objects
and purposes of the Act of December session, 1831, chapter
281, by which an annual appropriation was made of $10,000
for twenty years, and a Board of State Managers was ap-
pointed to carry out the objects of the Act. The reports here-
tofore made by that board to the honorable the General As-
sembly have shewn in what manner said appropriation was
expended, partly in removing a limited number of free people
of color and emancipated slaves to Africa, but mainly in making
ample preparation on that coast to receive the great body of
that class of persons whenever their condition in this country
should lead them to the conclusion that their own interests
required their removal thither.

So well satisfied were the successive legislative bodies of the
State with the course which had been pursued that not only
during all the financial embarrassments and difficulties was
this annual appropriation not interfered with, but when it
terminated at the end of twenty years by the expiring of the
Act of 1831, the General Assembly, by the Act of January
session, 1852, chapter 202, renewed the appropriation of
$10,000 per annum for the term of six years. This amount
likewise was received by the Board of State Managers, and
expended as was shewn by their reports in continuing to carry
out the same policy, and in building up and enlarging the

accommodations of the Asylum prepared in Africa to receive
any number of emigrants from this country -wlio might be ex-
pected to resort to it.

During this term of six years^ as well as for many years
previously, the disbursements of the State appropriation by the
Board of State Managers was made, as was stated in all their
reports, through the agency and instrumentality of the Mary-
land State Colonization Society, of which, by the Act of 1831,
they were required to be members.

When the Act of 1852 expired by its own limitation, the
last General Assembly, adopting the views of their predeces-
sors and coinciding with them in the propriety of continuing
to carry out the policy which had been invariably pursued by
the State for the preceding twenty-six years, again renewed
the appropriation of $10,000 per annum for four years longer
in a somewhat modified form, by placing absolutely at the
disposal of the Board of State Managers the sum of $5,000 in
each year, and restricting them from making any other use
of the remaining $5,000 than to apply it to the actual ex-
penses per capita, at prescribed rates of such emigrants as
they might actually send out to Africa. Of this appropriation
made by the Act of 1858, not one dollar has yet been drawn
by the Board of State Managers from the Treasury for reasons
to which I respectfully beg leave briefly to refer.

The great mass of the free colored population of the State
have at all times manifested a strong indisposition to remove
from their old homes to a distant clime, whatever might be
the prospect of bettering their own condition and that of their
children by so doing. For a number of years past this indis-
position has continued to manifest itself more and more
strongly, and those who best know them have been satisfied
that the most untiring efforts have been made by those op-
posed to the scheme of colonization, both white and colored,
to foster the prejudices and to add to the fears of all who have
from time to time manifested any disposition to emigrate.
Many have been persuaded by ignorant or designing persons
that if they remain here their condition of social and political
inferiority to the white population will in time be ameliorated,
and those who have manifested any intention to leave the
country, have even been denounced as traitors to their race,
because they are told that their deliverance from the evils of
which they complain will be due to the expected increase in
their aggregate number, and that thus every man who leaves
the State retards to that extent the consummation they are
taught to look for. The friends of the cause of the coloniza-
tion on the other hand have always held that the true interests
of the free colored people would be best promoted by their
removal from all contact with a superior and dominant race,
and that even under the circumstances which have long ex-

isted liere the African colonies offered to tliem homes where
they could enjoy far greater prospects of happiness and ad-
vancement than they could ever hope for in this country ; and
whilst we have never advocated any attempt to compel them
by BtriDgent measures to remove, we have always avowed our
helief that the time was rapidly approaching when the grow-
ing pressure upon them arising from the increase of the white
population and the consequent competition for the means of
livelihood would require them to leave the State, whether
such departure were hastened by unfriendly legislation or not.
In anticipation of such a state of things the Colonization So-
ciety has confined its efforts to aiding in the removal of such
of the free people of color as it could find v/iiling to emigrate,
but chiefly in the preparation and establisiiment on the coast
of Africa of a colony adequate to the reception of as many as
may hereafter resort to it. The Society has succeeded in es-
tablishing and building up such a colony at Maryland, in
Liberia, now a county of the Independent Eepublic of Li-
beria.

The officers and managers of the Colonization Society have
seen with regret some of the proposed enactments introduced
for the consideration of the honorable the General Assembly
in reference to the colored population, deeming them to be
more stringent and coercive than there is any occasion for
adopting. But as they have always considered that it was
not within their province to interfere in any manner with the
measures of police regulation which the Legislature might be
pleased to enact, so at this time they have forborne to offer
any expression of their opinion of the measures proposed.
They leave this matter where it properly belongs, in the hands
of the General Assembly and of its constituents. They beg
leave^ however, respectfully to pray that one provision of a
proposed enactment, especially relating to the Colonization
Society may not become a law. It is that which proposes to
repeal in part the appropriation made by the Act of 1858,
chapter 425. As has already been stated, the Board of State
Managers have not during the past two years drawn from the
Treasury any part of the sum of $10,000 which, under the
last mentioned law, they were authorized to receive had they
required it for the purpose of carrying out the design of the
said Act. But I am instructed respectfully to represent to the
honorable the General Assembly, that if it is intended that
that legislation of the present session is designed to be such
as to impose further restrictions on the free people of color
residing here. Humanity would seem clearly to dictate that
the whole past policy of the State in providing for their com-
fortable establishment should not, at such a juncture, be de-
parted from. In the name, therefore, of the Maryland State
Colonization Society, as well as of all others who feel an in-

terest in the welfare of the free people of color, constituting
so large a portion of the inhabitants of the State, I am in-
gtructed earnestly to solicit that no change be made m the ex-
isting lawmaking the appropriation for colonization. ^^ouVd
the amount not be required for its intended objects, the past
course of the Board of State Managers gives a guarantee that
it will not be expended, and should it be wanted, and the
whole amount of $10,000 be called for by a largely increased
emigration, it is believed that the people of the State will
witness with pleasure its expenditures. , ,. .

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient

'^''''*''** CHAKLES HOWAED,

Presidtnt Maryland State Colonization Society.

Baltimorb, February 22, 1860.