o dentist (Roderick Badger) in our
midst; and in justice to ourselves and the community it ought to be abated.
We, the residents of Atlanta, appeal to you for justice."[59] But it may
readily be guessed that these petitioners were more moved by the interest
of rival dentists than by their concern as Southern citizens. Southern
protests of another class, to be discussed below, against the toleration
of colored freedmen in general, were prompted by considerations of public
security, not by personal dislike.

[Footnote 57: Cf. N.S. Shaler, _The Neighbor_ (Boston, 1904), pp. 166,
186-191.]

[Footnote 58: _E. g_., J.H. Russell, _The Free Negro in Virginia_, pp.
152-155.]

[Footnote 59: J.H. Martin, _Atlanta and its Builders_ ([Atlanta,] 1902), I,
145.]

Although the free colored numbers varied greatly from state to state,
their distribution on the two sides of Mason and Dixon's line maintained
a remarkable equality throughout the antebellum period. The chief
concentration was in the border states of either section. At the one
extreme they were kept few by the chill of the climate; at the other
by stringency of the law and by the high prices of slave labor which
restrained the practice of manumission. Wherever they dwelt, they lived
somewhat precariously upon the sufferance of the whites, and in a more or
less palpable danger of losing their liberty.

Not only were escaped slaves liable to recapture anywhere within the United
States, but those who were legally free might be seized on fraudulent
claims and enslaved in circumvention of the law, or they might be kidnapped
outright. One of those taken by fraud described his experience and
predicament as follows in a letter from "Boonvill Missouria" to the
governor of Georgia: "Mr. Coob Dear Sir I have Embrast this oppertuniny of
Riting a few Lines to you to inform you that I am sold as a Slave for 14
hundard dolars By the man that came to you Last may and told you a Pack
of lies to get you to Sine the warrant that he Brought that warrant was a
forged as I have heard them say when I was Coming on to this Countrey and
Sir I thought that I would write and see if I could get you to do any thing
for me in the way of Getting me my freedom Back a Gain if I had some Papers
from the Clarkes office in the City of Milledgeville and a little Good
addvice in a Letter from you or any kind friend that I could get my freedom
a Gain and my name can Be found on the Books of the Clarkes office