unded by the Society of Friends, and was
supported in its early days and presumably still "by bequests and
donations made by members of that Society." The objects of the
Institute as set forth by its founders, fifty-seven years ago, are:
"The education and improvement of colored youth of both sexes, to
qualify them to act as teachers and instructors to their own people,
either in the various branches of school learning or the mechanic
arts and agriculture." Two years later the African Methodists
purchased one hundred and eighty acres of land in eastern Ohio and
established what was called the Union Seminary, on the manual labor
plan. It did not succeed, but it lingered along, keeping alive the
idea, until it was eclipsed by Wilberforce University, into which it
was finally merged.

The anti-slavery fight carried on in the North, into which the colored
men entered and became powerful leaders, aroused the race to a deep
study of the whole subject of liberty and brought them in sympathy
with all people who had either gained or were struggling for their
liberties, and prompted them to investigate all countries offering to
them freedom. No country was so well studied by them as Hayti, and
from 1824 to 1860 there had been considerable emigration thither.
Liberia, Central and South America and Canada were all considered
under the thought of emigration. Thousands went to Hayti and to
Canada, but the bulk preferred to remain here. They liked America, and
had become so thoroughly in love with the doctrines of the Republic,
so imbued with the pride of the nation's history, so inspired with
hope in the nation's future, that they resolved to live and die on her
soil. When the troublous times of 1860 came and white men were fleeing
to Canada, colored men remained at their posts. They were ready to
stand by the old flag and to take up arms for the Union, trusting that
before the close of the strife the flag might have to them a new
meaning. An impassioned colored orator had said of the flag: "Its
stars were for the white man, and its stripes for the Negro, and it
was very appropriate that the stripes should be red." The free Negro
of the North was prepared in 1861 to support Abraham Lincoln with
40,000 as good American-born champions for universal liberty as the
country could present.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Slave Trade--Carey.

[2] Outlines--Tanner.

[3] A.M.E. Magazine, 1843.

[4] It is to be noted that in Maryland and Virginia