Thomas Kennedy requests passage of an act appropriating annual contributions to the American Colonization Society. Kennedy argues that "Liberia is the best and surest Assylum for our free people of Colour" as "there they will be entitled to all the immunities and priviledges appertaining to a Republican form of Government." He further sees Liberia soon becoming "of immense importance to the United States in a commercial point of view” and its residents “will act as an Effective barrier against the slave trade, that desolating scourge of Africa, which has deprived her of Millions of her children, and consigned them to excruciating deaths, on the passage and servile bondage in Strange Lands." He therefore "Respectfully, but earnestly entreats the present Legislature to pass an act making annual appropriations to the American Colonization Society at the City of Washington of some specific sum to enable the society to transport and colonize such free people of colour in our state as may desire to be colonized in Liberia, and that you extend your act so as to provide that owners of slaves may bequeath transfer or convey his, her, or their slaves to the A. C. S. for the express purpose of having them colonized in Liberia, and that such bequests, Transfers, or conveyances of such slaves, for such purposes shall be lawful." Kennedy believes "such an act ... would have a salutary effect and influence throughout the State."
Result: Rejected.
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
