New Jersey as early as 1807 disfranchised her free negroes outright. New York in 1813, and again in 1815, followed the example, and by a shameful and unconstitutional law sought to deprive them of the ballot. Under the constitution, any male with twenty pounds of freehold estate, or paying an annual rent of forty shillings a year, was entitled to vote if he possessed the necessary qualifications of age and residence, and had been assessed and paid State or county taxes. But all this, if he were a black male, counted for nothing under the law. He must go before the register of deeds and, under oath and at much cost, prove that he was a free black and not a slave. If the register was satisfied with the proof, the negro must be measured and his stature noted on a certificate of freedom, which, with a vast deal of other matters, must be entered on record. The cost was twelve shillings. Five days before each election the negro citizen must go again to the register, buy a certified copy of the record to show to the inspectors of election, who, if he came without the transcript, might deprive him of the right to vote, though he possessed every qualification prescribed in the State constitution.*

For this New York made some atonement, in 1817, by the passage of a law providing that on July fourth, 1827, slavery should cease in the State, and every slave within her bounds become free.t

*While the bill was before the Council of Revision, Chancellor Kent protested against it. New York Evening Post, April 11, 1815. But it passed and became law in 1815. For the protest of the free negroes in mass meeting assembled, see The Evening Post, April 18, 1815.

The gradual abolition act of 1799 ordered that all children born of slave parents after July 14th of that year should be free-the females at twenty-five years of age and the males at twenty-eight. In 1817 the Governor, Daniel D. Tompkins, earnestly recommended "the Legislature to establish some future day, not more remote than the 4th of July, 1827, on which slavery shall cease within this State. Before the arrival of that period most colored persons born previously to the 14th of July, 1799 (and all others are now free by the existing laws), will have become of very little value to their owners. Indeed, many of them will by that time have become an expensive burden. To fix a day thus remote for general emancipation will consequently impair in a very small degree any private right, and will, at the same time, be consistent with the humanity and justice of a free and happy people."-Message of January 28, 1817.

1825.

THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY.

193

The social conditions which prompted the New York law of 1815 found a general expression a year later, when men both North and South joined heartily in founding and promoting the American Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of the United States for the sole purpose of ridding the country of what was described as "a dangerous and useless part of the community." From the day it was founded at Washington to the day when every black became a free man the spirit which animated this famous society was one hopeless despondency over the condition of the free black in the United States. To release the slave, to mitigate the horrors of slavery, to raise up those whose happy lot it was to be free, formed no part of its mission. It is no abolition society, exclaimed one member. The emancipation of slaves or the amelioration of their condition, with moral, intellectual, and political improvement of the people of color within the United States, said the Board of Managers, are objects foreign to the powers of this society. To the slave-holders, said another authority, we address ourselves in a tone of conciliation and sympathy. We know their rights and we respect them.† We hold their slaves, as we hold their other property, sacred.‡ The purpose of the society, said its constitution, is to be exclusively directed to the colonization of free blacks in Africa,# and this purpose it sought to accomplish because there did not seem to be any hope of their improvement in America. The public utterances of its officers and distinguished members; the pages of the African Repository, which did duty as its official organ; the annual reports; the addresses delivered before the State societies; the memorials sent up to the Legislatures of almost

* See History of the People of the United States, vol. iv, pp. 557-563. "We hold their slaves, as we hold their other property, sacred." Speech of J. S. Green before New Jersey Colonization Society.-African Repository, vol. i, p. 283.

"To the slave-holder they address themselves in a tone of conciliation and sympathy. We know your rights, they say, and we respect them."—Ibid., vol. vii, p. 100.

# Art. II. "The object to which its attention is to be exclusively directed is to promote and execute a plan for colonizing (with their consent) the free people of color residing in our country, in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall deem most expedient."

66

*

every State, teem with descriptions of the free blacks. They are held up to the community as "a horde of miserable people, subsisting by plunder "; as a greater nuisance than slaves"; as a vile excrescence upon society "; as a curse and contagion "; as "the most degraded, the most abandoned race on earth." Even Clay joined heartily in these denunciations, and repeatedly gave it as his belief that of all descriptions of our population they were the very worst.

In justice to the men who spoke and wrote in this wise, it must be remembered that they were animated by no spirit of hatred of the negro, free or slave. They were, in their own opinion and in the opinion of a large part of the community, a band of philanthropic gentlemen earnestly laboring for the welfare of a down-trodden race. But this welfare

could not be secured in America. Our habits, our feelings, our prejudices, they would argue-prejudices which neither refinement, nor education, nor reason, nor religion can overcome-doom the negro to a degradation inevitable and incurable. The blackness of their skins, a constant reminder of their origin and former condition of servitude, sets up a barrier which is to stand forever between them and the white. They belong by birth to the very lowest rank in society, and from that rank, be their industry, their enterprise, their wealth ever so great, they cannot rise. They form a class out of which no individual can be elevated, and below which none can be sunk. There is not a State in the Union in which a negro or a mulatto can be elected to Congress, or sent to the

*From the African Repository a few extracts may be taken as specimens: "There is a class among us, introduced by violence, notoriously ignorant, de graded, and miserable, mentally diseased, broken spirited, acted upon by no motives to honorable exertions, scarcely reached in their debasement by the heavenly light-the class is the free blacks."-African Repository, vol. i, p. 68.

"Free blacks are a greater nuisance than even slaves themselves."-Ibid., vol. ii, p. 189.

"This class of persons a curse and contagion wherever they reside."-Ibid., vol. iii, p. 203.

"Averse to labor, with no incentives to industry, or motives to respect, they maintain a precarious existence by petty thefts and plunder."-Ibid., vol. vi, p. 135. "An anomalous race of beings the most depraved upon earth."-Ibid., vol. vii, p. 230.

1825. POPULAR ESTIMATE OF THE FREE NEGRO.

195

Legislature, or seated on the bench, or made a justice of the peace, or put in command of a company of militia. Where can they ride in the same coach, or sit at the same table, or mingle in society with the white? Where will the white working-man labor at the same bench, or plough in the same field, or toil on the same building with a black man? Every incentive to industry and good conduct which arises from the hope of advancement in this world is taken from him. What can it profit him to be educated, or refined, or rich? Looking forward to no honorable distinction, aiming at no excellence, the negro makes no efforts beyond such as are necessary to supply his daily wants. With loss of hope comes loss of desire, and the debasement which as a slave was compulsory becomes habitual and voluntary with the free negro and his children after him. No wonder, then, that the statistics of crime present him in a horrible light. A million three hundred and forty thousand whites in New York furnish four hundred and eighty convicts, while thirty-nine thousand negroes contribute one hundred and fifty. In Pennsylvania it is worse. Her million whites send three hundred and ten convicts to the penitentiaries, and her thirty thousand free blacks one hundred and sixty.

In the main, this description of the status of the free black man was true. But, however praiseworthy in the eyes of the friends of colonization may have been the purpose for which the picture was drawn, the effect of it on the community was bad. The degradation, the misery, the viciousness of the free negro was held up before the people not for the purpose of exciting sympathy, not for the purpose of impressing the fact that this degradation was the result of unjust prejudices and cruel laws which it was the duty of Christians. and civilized men to overcome and repeal, but in order to persuade them to contribute money to get rid of the despised class by sending it to Africa. The feeling aroused was not such as prompted States to establish penitentiaries for the reform of criminals; to give the prisoners in the jails good food, clothes, and warm cells, and not such as force the creditor to be merciful to the debtor; led men to found Bible societies, tract societies, and temperance societies; send missionaries

VOL. V.

to the ends of the earth, and educate children of evil-disposed parents that they might become honest men and women, but one of hostility. The negro was past all reformation. He must be encouraged to go to Africa, and no easier way of inducing him to go could be devised than to keep him in a debased condition in the United States. All attempts for his betterment, therefore, were frowned down or openly resisted by the Colonization Society. Slavery must not be abolished, either immediately or gradually, because that would increase the evil by making the free negroes ten times more numerous. The slave must not be manumitted save on condition that he would go to Africa.

Had this view been confined to a few men, it would have been serious enough in its consequences. But, unhappily, it was vigorously indorsed by legislatures, by religious bodies, by churches, by statesmen, and by Congress, till the people were quite convinced that the African race was past all redemption, and that the deportation to Africa was all the consideration to which a free negro was entitled.

It was natural that results of this state of feeling toward the black man should be quick to show themselves, and that a willingness to strip him of the few privileges he possessed should be widely manifest. Statistics had often been cited to prove that free blacks furnished more criminals in proportion to their numbers than whites. But when the census of 1820 revealed the fact that in Massachusetts, where the negroes made one seventy-fifth of the total population, they contributed one sixth of the criminals,* the House of Representatives took the alarm at what it considered "the increase of a species of population which threatened to become both injurious and burdensome," + and determined to take the necessary steps to check it by legislation. A committee was therefore appointed and bidden to consider the expediency of making alterations in the laws concerning the admission into residence in Massachusetts of free negroes and mulattoes.

The population was 523,000, of which 7,000 were negroes. The convicts in 1820 were 314, of whom 50 were blacks.

Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts. G. H. Moore, pp. 237-239.