nity. He at least
shows, however, that he has the courage to reside among the
people whose institutions he assails. He is not like William
Lloyd Garrison living in Massachusetts, and opening the battery
upon the states five hundred or one thousand miles off. He is not
such a coward or fool as to think of cannonading the South from
the steeple of a New England meeting house."

The climax of Birney's career in Kentucky had been reached in the
early part of 1835 when he split with the Kentucky Colonization
Society. Judge Underwood in the annual colonization address at
Frankfort had attempted to show that the only way to exterminate
slavery in the State was by African colonization. He advocated the
expenditure of $140,000 annually for the transportation of four
thousand Negroes between the ages of seventeen and twenty. The plan if
followed for fifty years he stated would rid the State of all
slaves.[426] In a letter to Gerrit Smith on January 31, 1835, Birney
voiced his opposition to the plan of Judge Underwood and to any scheme
of colonization. Thus on another point he was to be classed as a
radical abolitionist and his career of usefulness in Kentucky was at
an end. If he had chosen a more middle ground and aided the cause of
colonization, he would no doubt have accomplished much good. As it
was, he was forced to leave the State after many threats and
thereafter he stormed the institution of slavery in his native State
from a safe region north of the Ohio River. From that time on
everything that he uttered in opposition to slavery in Kentucky was
met with a strong current of opposition. Where Birney might have
accomplished much for his native State he really did harm because he
went beyond the point where the people would listen to his advice. In
September, 1834, he visited Henry Clay and that most liberal of all
Kentucky slaveholders pointed out to Birney the error of his ways but
the latter showed no signs of listening to advice and thereafter Clay
and Birney were sworn political antagonists. Had Birney joined with
Clay at this time there might have been a much brighter future in
Kentucky for the cause of emancipation. As it was, Birney never
receded from his position and when the Presbyterian Synod came out
with its plan of gradual emancipation Birney voiced his determined
opposition to the scheme because it did not favor the immediate
liberation of the slaves.[427] With the advent of the