60                The Maryland Constitution of 1851.             [438

pointed a committee to whom was referred the subject of
the status of the free colored population. The committee
was required to submit to the convention " some prospec-
tive plan, looking to the riddance of this State, of the free
negro, and mulatto population thereof, and their coloniza-
tion in Africa.⁷⁷

The increase of the free black population in Maryland
between the years of 1840 and 1850 was eleven thousand
one hundred and twenty-nine. From 1790 to 1850 the
annual increase averaged one thousand and fifty-two. The
counties of Cecil, Kent, Caroline, Worcester, Harford and
Baltimore City, had more free negroes than slaves in 1850.
The counties of Charles, St. Mary's, Calvert, Kent, Caro-
line and Worcester showed an increasing per cent of free
negroes over the whites in the ten years between 1840 and
1850. The total white increase during the same decade
for the whole State was 29.9 per cent. The free black in-
crease was 17.9 per cent. Slaves had decreased.⁶⁵ The
committee showed that at the given rate of progression,
the free negro population must in a few years exceed the
white population in eleven of the counties. The committee
explained the cause of this increase by the emigration of
the white population to the western states, while the free
negro remained, knowing that when once he emigrated, the
law forbade his return.

The Maryland State Colonization Society was incorpor-
ated by the state legislature in 1831.⁶⁶ The object of the
society was to employ the funds collected in Maryland for
the removal of the free negro population. From this time
the plan of colonization in Africa was adopted as a state
policy.

The act of 1831 ordered the governor and council to
appoint a board of three managers, members of the Mary-
land Colonization Society, whose duty it should be to

⁶⁵ Committee's Report, Debates, vol. ii, p. 220.
⁶⁶ Act 1831, ch. 314.