e part of the colored people was a "move by some one in whom the people
have confidence to put the whole column in motion," and just "when there is
a start made in Alabama the whole body of the free people of color will
join in a solid phalanx." As for himself he had fully made up his mind to
go to Liberia, but could not leave the United States until he had closed up
a ten years' business, and if successful in collecting "tolerably well"
what was due him he would be able to go without expense to the Society.[18]

In July, 1848, this same writer addressed to Mr. McLain another letter in
which he gave details of a trip he had made in an adjoining county in the
interest of emigration to Liberia. During this trip he said he had found a
few free colored people who, after he had talked with them on the subject,
were of one accord that the best thing they could do for themselves was to
emigrate to Liberia.[19] In another letter addressed to McLain by the same
writer December 29, 1851, it was stated that the colonization movement was
still growing in the State. He also said that "those of us who want to go
to Liberia are men who have been striving to do something" for themselves
and consequently have "more or less business to close up." Mention was also
made of the fact that there were at Huntsville, in the northern part of the
State, several who had in part "made up their minds to go and only wanted a
little encouragement to set them fully in favor of Liberia."[20]

Although thus favorably received in the South, however, the Colonization
Society met opposition in other parts. The spreading of the immediate
abolition doctrine by men like Garrison and Jay had a direct bearing on the
enterprise. The two movements became militantly arrayed against each other
and tended to inflame the minds of the colored people throughout the
country. The consensus of opinion among them was that the Colonization
Society was their worst enemy and its efforts would tend only to
exterminate the free people of color and perpetuate the institution of
slavery.[21] So general was this feeling that T. H. Gallaudet, a promoter of
the colonization movement, writing to one of its officers in 1831, said
that something must be done to calm the feelings of the colored people in
the large cities of the North.[22] Their resentment seemed to be due not so
much to the fact that they were urged to emigrate, but that a large number
of the promoters of the enterprise se