4.

[14] Cooley, _Sketches of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lemuel
Haynes_, p. 170.

[15] Cooley, _Sketches of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lemuel
Haynes_, pp. 372-373.

THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY OF CANADA

The Anti-Slavery Society of Canada was one of the forms in which the
abolition sentiment of the province of Upper Canada made its
contribution to the final settlement of the great issue in the
neighboring country. Though founded comparatively late in the
struggle, it was, after all, rather the union of forces long active
than the creation of some new weapon to aid the battle. The men and
women who composed its membership were abolitionists long before the
society was founded. Its purpose was solely to bring united effort to
bear upon the great task and the great responsibility that fell upon
Canada when the passing of the Fugitive Slave Bill drove the Negroes
from the North into Canada by the hundreds, if not by the thousands.
With newcomers arriving every day, destitute, friendless and more or
less dazed by the experiences through which they had passed, it was no
small task that these Canadian abolitionists had undertaken to care
for the fugitives, give them opportunities for education and social
advancement and enable them to show by their own efforts that they
were capable of becoming useful citizens.

The society had its birth in Toronto in February, 1851. There had been
attempts before this to found such an organization but they had come
to nothing. By 1851, however, the situation in the United States had
changed and the effect had at once shown itself in Canada, so that the
time was ripe for the bringing into one body of the various
individuals who had been showing themselves the friends of the slave.
The Society of Canada continued active right through the fifties and
early sixties, not resting until the aim for which it had been founded
had been accomplished. With the close of the Civil War there was a
large emigration of Negroes back to their own land where their freedom
had been bought in blood, and the need of any large organization to
look after their welfare as a race gradually ceased. During its period
of active work, however, the society spread out from Toronto to all
the larger cities and towns where there was a Negro population, and in
both educational and relief work showed itself an energetic body.
Included in its active membership were some of the best-known men in
the pro