The Auxiliary Colonization Society of Franklin County supports the removal of free black people from Tennessee to Liberia. They state "that there are many free negroes in this State, and that their removal, in the opinion of your petitioners is highly important to the well being of the good people of the State, and is also desirable for the benefit it would confer upon the free negroes themselves." The petitioners argue that free people of color "are an ignorant and degraded race, & that although they are not Slaves, yet they have scarcely any of the privileges of the white population, and their associations must of necessity be among our slaves, by which their morals become corrupt." They therefore propose, with "motives of benevolence towards the free negroes themselves, and by a just regard to the quiet and good order of our domesticks, and by a regard for our own safety, from the dangers of insurrection," that "an appropriation of such portion of the publick monies, as in your wisdom may seem sufficient" be made and "placed under the direction of the Colonization Society."
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Repository: Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
