He required his five children to attend daily family prayer services, and to sleep on the floor because he thought beds were too soft and "degrading to character development".

This organization, made up of both abolitionists and slaveholders, had proposed colonization in Africa as a solution for freedmen, rather than allowing them to remain in the United States.

[8] Tubman was soon appointed as a recorder in the Maryland County Monthly and Probate Court[4] a tax collector, teacher, and as colonel in a militia.

[9] Identifying as the "Convivial Cannibal from the Downcoast Hinterlands," he fought for constitutional rights for the members of indigenous tribal groups, who comprised the overwhelming number of Liberians.

[10] Tubman was reelected to the national legislature in 1934;[8] he resigned in 1937 after being appointed by President Edwin Barclay as associate justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia,[4] where he served until 1943.

[8] An official biography speculates that Barclay appointed Tubman to the Liberian Supreme Court to remove him as a competitor for the presidency.

[citation needed] Liberian policy is committed to the concept of a free enterprise system, democracy, and a pragmatic search for solutions to problems of multinational existence.

This association of "moderate" African leaders worked for gradual unification of Africa, unlike the "revolutionary" group based at Casablanca.

[23] When Tubman was appointed to the Supreme Court in the 1930s, Liberia was seriously underdeveloped, lacking basic infrastructure of roads, railways, and sanitation systems.

[24] Tubman said that Liberia had never received the "benefits of colonization", by which he meant the investment by a wealthy major power to develop the infrastructure of the country.

[9] With the expansion of the economy, Tubman gained revenues for the government to construct and modernize infrastructure: the streets of Monrovia were paved, a public sanitation system was installed,[25] hospitals were built,[8] and a literacy program was launched in 1948.

[26][27] During Tubman's administration, several thousand kilometers of roads were built, as was a railway line to connect the iron mines to the coast for transport of this commodity for export.

[9] It was during this time that Tubman became regarded as a pro-Western, stabilizing influence in West Africa, at a period when other countries were achieving independence—often amid violence.

Under Tubman, Liberia voted with the U.S. on most key matters at the United Nations, although it sometimes sided with other African states, particularly on decolonization and anti-apartheid issues.

Tubman gradually extended ties to the Soviet bloc, but he supported the United States on the Vietnam War, as did his successor, William R.

[citation needed] His former ally and later political opponent S. David Coleman and his son John were hunted down and killed by Liberian soldiers for allegedly plotting to overthrow him.