nia, being the prohibition of the slave trade. In the determination
to suppress this traffic all the States united--but in emancipation
their policy differed. It was found easier to manage the slaves than the
free blacks--at least it was claimed to be so--and, for this reason, the
slave States, not long after the others had completed their work of
manumission, proceeded to enact laws prohibiting emancipations, except
on condition that the persons liberated should be removed. The newly
organized free States, too, taking alarm at this, and dreading the
influx of the free colored people, adopted measures to prevent the
ingress of this proscribed and helpless race.

These movements, so distressing to the reflecting colored man, be it
remembered, were not the effect of the action of colonizationists, but
took place, mostly, long before the organization of the American
Colonization Society; and, at its first annual meeting, the importance
and humanity of colonization was strongly urged, on the very ground that
the slave States, as soon as they should find that the persons liberated
could be sent to Africa, would relax their laws against emancipation.

The slow progress made by the great body of the free blacks in the
North, or the absence, rather, of any evidences of improvement in
industry, intelligence, and morality, gave rise to the notion, that
before they could be elevated to an equality with the whites, slavery
must be wholly abolished throughout the Union. The constant ingress of
liberated slaves from the South, to commingle with the free colored
people of the North, it was claimed, tended to perpetuate the low moral
standard originally existing among the blacks; and universal
emancipation was believed to be indispensable to the elevation of the
race. Those who adopted this view, seem to have overlooked the fact,
that the Africans, of savage origin, could not be elevated at once to an
equality with the American people, by the mere force of legal
enactments. More than this was needed, for their elevation, as all are
now, reluctantly, compelled to acknowledge. Emancipation, unaccompanied
by the means of intellectual and moral culture, is of but little value.
The savage, liberated from bondage, is a savage still.

The slave States adopted opinions, as to the negro character, opposite
to those of the free States, and would not risk the experiment of
emancipation. They said, if the free States feel themselves burdened by