in the suppression for the space of ten years of
the right of petition, guarantied, if there could be a guarantee
against slavery, by the first article amendatory of the Constitution.

No. 13.

THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.

* * * * *

ON THE CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR
IN THE UNITED STATES.

* * * * *

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.

1839.

* * * * *

This No. contains 1-1/2 sheet.--Postage, under 100 miles,
2-1/2 cts. over 100, 3 cts.

Please Read and circulate.

ON THE CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR.

* * * * *

It appears from the census of 1830, that there were then 319,467
free colored persons in the United States. At the present time the
number cannot be less than 360,000. Fifteen States of the Federal
Union have each a smaller population than this aggregate. Hence if
the whole mass of human beings inhabiting Connecticut, or New Jersey,
or any other of these fifteen States, were subjected to the ignorance,
and degradation, and persecution and terror we are about to describe,
as the lot of this much injured people, the amount of suffering would
still be numerically less than that inflicted by a professedly
Christian and republican community upon the free negroes. Candor,
however, compels us to admit that, deplorable as is their condition,
it is still not so wretched as Colonizationists and slaveholders,
for obvious reasons, are fond of representing it. It is not true
that free negroes are "more vicious and miserable than slaves _can_
be,"[97] nor that "it would be as humane to throw slaves from the
decks of the middle passage, as to set them free in this country,"[98]
nor that "a sudden and universal emancipation without
colonization, would be a greater CURSE to the slaves themselves,
than the bondage in which they are held."

[Footnote 97: Rev. Mr. Bacon, of New Haven, 7 Rep. Am. Col. Soc.
p. 99.]

[Footnote 98: African Repository, Vol. IV. p. 226.]

It is a little singular, that in utter despite of these rash
assertions slaveholders and colonizationists unite in assuring us,
that the slaves are rendered _discontented_ by _witnessing_ the
freedom of their colored brethren; and hence we are urged to assist
in banishing to Africa these sable and dangerous mementoes of liberty.

We all kno