The
American Colonization Society (
ACS; in full,
The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America), established in 1816 by
Robert Finley of
New Jersey, was founded by groups otherwise opposed to each other on the issue of slavery. The ACS intended to support the colonization of free
African Americans because their presence served as "a perpetual excitement" to the enslaved blacks and threatened the slave societies of the South. All of the early organizers of the Society were slaveholders; according to annual reports of the Society, they hoped in this effort to strengthen the institution of slavery. It helped to found the
colony of
Liberia in 1821–22 on the coast of West Africa as a place for free-born American blacks. Among its supporters were
Charles Fenton Mercer,
Henry Clay,
John Randolph, and
Richard Bland Lee.