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in her limits. Where these can find employment, chiefly as do-
mestics and laborers, as in her populous city, and in the more
thickly settled portions of the State; and are entitled to all the
consideration and protection with which the law guards even the
humblest individual, there is but little of the evil of their vagran-
cy and idleness felt, nor much complaint of its existence.

But in the lower counties of our State on both sides of the
Bay, the continuance and increase of this vagrancy and the crime
it occasions, and its pernicious effects upon the worthier portion
of their class, and upon the servile population, is notorious to all
residents there, and has for a long time occupied my attention
with a view to some remedy. It is a matter every way worthy
our attention, gentlemen, and we may possibly find in the favorite
Maryland policy of colonization, and the Colonization Society,
the means of assistance.

The plan of returning to the country, whence their progenitors
were taken, that class of our population, when their relations to
our citizens became changed; and when by their habits or want
of proper control, they could only remain here as an embarrass-
ment to our industry, and a clog upon our progress, has always
justly been a favorite with the people of Maryland. Her statute
book is filled with the proofs of the care and interest she has al-
ways felt in its success. I think while you are continuing to that
just and Christian cause, the assistance you have heretofore so
properly extended, you might usefully inquire whether the aid of
the Society might not be had in the correction of a state of things
which, if further developed, will insist upon some less agreea-
ble remedy. It might be of advantage for the State to hold out
further inducements to this free colored rural population to emi-
grate to the colony founded in Liberia, and perhaps a condition
annexed to future emancipation in our State should be, either a
removal of those who are freed before they should be contamina-
ted in their new association, or the payment to the State of a
sum sufficient to secure the colonization of an equal number.
If some plan could be devised to secure this end, without infring-
ing on any rights of even the lowliest, we should have the double
satisfaction of securing to the State a better population, of lessen-
ing the material for crime and vagrancy, while we should be ex.
tending the usefulness and operations of a society, deserving all
that it has ever received from the State, and from the charitable
and Christian men who support and direct its enterprise. It is no
small consideration in favor of such proposition, that it would in-
cidentally aid in the diffusion of Christianity and civilization
over a region forbidden to the white man, and among a
race, who can look for no aid, it seems, from that sect of political
philanthropists among us, whose humanity ceases to act at the
moment the necessity for its exercise begins. If indeed a tithe
of the money and labor which that sect has wasted in tresspasses