been for the excitement aroused by
the Alien and Sedition Laws, the bill probably would have passed.[33]

Many successful efforts were made through the anti-slavery bodies. The
society known as "Friends of Humanity" was organized in Kentucky in 1807.
It had a constitution signed by eleven preachers and thirteen laymen.
The organization was in existence as late as 1813. The records of the
abolitionists show that there was another such society near Frankfort
between 1809 and 1823.[34] Birney then appeared in the State and gave his
influence to the cause with a view to promoting the exportation of Negroes
to Liberia.[35] A number of citizens also memorialized Congress to colonize
the Negroes on the public lands in the West.[36] In the later twenties an
effort was made to unite the endeavors of many wealthy and influential
persons who were then interested in promoting abolition. Lacking a vigorous
and forceful leader, they appealed to Henry Clay, who refused.[37] They
fought on, however, for years to come. A contributor to the _Western
Luminary_ said, in 1830, that the people of Kentucky were finding slavery
a burden.[38] Evidently a good many of them had come to this conclusion,
for a bill providing for emancipation introduced in the Legislature was
postponed indefinitely by a vote of 18 to 11.[39] So favorable were
conditions in Kentucky at this time that it was said that Tennessee was
watching Kentucky with the expectation of following her lead should the
latter become a free State as was then expected.

The main factor in promoting the work in Tennessee was, as in Kentucky,
the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock. They opposed slavery in word and in
deed, purchasing and setting free a number of colored men. Among these
liberal westerners was organized the "Manumission Society of Tennessee,"
represented for years in the American Convention of Abolition Societies by
Benjamin Lundy.[40] The Tennessee organization once had twenty branches and
a membership of six hundred.[41] Among its promoters were Charles Osborn,
Elihu Swain, John Underhill, Jesse Willis, John Cannady, John Swain, David
Maulsby, John Rankin, Jesse Lockhart, and John Morgan.[42] They advocated
at first immediate and unconditional emancipation, but soon seeing that the
realization of this policy was impossible, they receded from this advanced
position and memorialized their representatives to provide for gradual
emancipation, the abolition of slavery in the Dist