[SLAVERY] 1827 American Colonization Society Congressional Report

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Day 2: Early & Historic Americana

By Fleischer's Auctions

Oct 10, 2025

Set Reminder 2025-10-10 09:00:00 2025-10-10 09:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Day 2: Early & Historic Americana https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/fleischers-auctions/day-2-early-historic-americana-19250
Day one of Fleischer's 2025 Fall Premier auction includes early American artifacts, documents, signatures, ephemera, and weaponry. Rare material relating to African American history is featured, as well as fine examples of antique photography. Fleischer's Auctions info@fleischersauctions.com

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• Lot Description

  [Charles Fenton Mercer]. Colonization of Free People of Color. 19th Congress, 2d Session, Rep. No. 101, House of Representatives. [Washington, D.C.?]: N.p., 1827. 8vo, 95 pages. Disbound. 

   

  An important report of a proposal before the United States Congress to create "a suitable fund" to enact a mass deportation of all free persons of color to Liberia. The American Colonization Society, and a multitude of other such colonization groups, believed this to be the only practicable solution to slavery based on the belief that meaningful integration between white and Black persons was neither possible nor desirable.

   

  The speech was delivered by Charles Fenton Mercer (1778-1858), a Virginia lawyer and statesman who opposed slavery and co-founded the American Colonization Society in 1816. The Society was of national prominence and counted several notables among its early members, including James Madison, Henry Clay, John Marshall, Daniel Webster, Francis Scott Key, and James Monroe.

   

  For the proponents of colonization, the major questions remained whether freedmen would voluntarily agree to deportation and who should foot the bill. In Mercer's report, he argues on the grounds of "national security and welfare" that the federal government should provide the resources: "It is not easy to discern any object to which the pecuniary resources of the Union can be applied, of greater importance to the national security and welfare, than to provide for the removal, in a manner consistent with the rights and interests of the several States, of the free coloured population within their limits." 

   

  Following the printing of Mercer's report, the Congressional report includes meeting notes of the Society (including their inaugural meeting on 1 January 1817), a reprint of the 1817 pamphlet, "A View of Exertions Lately Made for the Purpose of Colonizing the Free People of Color," which includes extensive contributions by Henry Clay, and transcriptions and extracts from letters in support of colonization, mostly notably a 21 January 1811 letter by Thomas Jefferson, in which he writes: "Having long ago made up my mind on this subject, I have no hesitation in saying, that I have ever thought that the most desirable measure which could be adopted for gradually drawing off this part of our population. Most advantageous for themselves as well as for us..." 

   

  An important pamphlet elucidating the widely popular antebellum colonization movement. 

   

  VERY RARE. OCLC locates only 3 copies. No copies known in the trade. 

   

  [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Pamphlets, Publications, Ephemera, Books, Rare Books, Tracts]

  Condition

  Request Condition Report

  Disbound, only spine fragments. Some spotting throughout. 

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