Excerpt from Africa and Colonization: An Address Delivered Before the American Colonization Society, January 21, 1873

Mr. President: Although our Society is now holding its fifty-sixth Anniversary, it is only fifty years since the pilgrim fathers of Liberia landed at Cape Mesurado. During this half century very significant changes have occurred in the affairs both of the Society and of Western Africa. By virtue of these changes several of the purposes which were cherished, there and here, at the beginning, have been already aecom plished.

One of these purposes was the suppression of the West Af rican slave-trade. This cruel traffic was able to defy or outwit all the great nations which were united for its extermination. Treaties were formed with this intent between the leading Powers of Christendom, and these treaties were faithfully oh served. Squadrons were detailed to watch the African Coast, and to chase the slavers on the high seas; and these ships of war were well equipped and well handled. The trade was checked by these measures, but its infernal horrors were im measurably augmented. But when the Liberian settlers oc cupied Cape Mesurado and Cape Palmas, with the regions between, they were in possession of some of the chief marts of the traffic. As early as 1853, only thirty years after the Colony was established, the slaver had been driven away from a line of coast equal to the distance between the mouth of the Hudson and the Capes of Florida. In its colonial infancy, in the midst of the neglect and hostility which' it encountered, Liberia did more to cleanse from the brow of America and Europe the leprosy of the slave-trade - a leprosy of three hundred years' standing - than the combined diplomacy and naval forces of both continents had been able to accomplish. This work 18 now completed.

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