roes
in the rough to crowd northern cities during the first four decades of the
nineteenth century that they could not be easily readjusted. The number
seeking employment far exceeded the demand for labor and thus multiplied
the number of vagrants and paupers, many of whom had already been forced
to this condition by the Irish and Germans then immigrating into northern
cities. At one time, as in the case of Philadelphia, the Negroes
constituting a small fraction of the population furnished one half of the
criminals.[4] A radical opposition to the Negro followed, therefore,
arousing first the laboring classes and finally alienating the support of
the well-to-do people and the press. This condition obtained until 1840 in
most northern communities and until 1850 in some places where the Negro
population was considerable.

We must also take into account the critical labor situation during these
years. The northern people were divided as to the way the Negroes should
be encouraged. The mechanics of the North raised no objection to having
the Negroes freed and enlightened but did not welcome them to that section
as competitors in the struggle of life. When, therefore, the blacks,
converted to the doctrine of training the hand to work with skill, began
to appear in northern industrial centers there arose a formidable
prejudice against them.[5] Negro and white mechanics had once worked
together but during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, when
labor became more dignified and a larger number of white persons devoted
themselves to skilled labor, they adopted the policy of eliminating the
blacks. This opposition, to be sure, was not a mere harmless sentiment. It
tended to give rise to the organization of labor groups and finally to
that of trades unions, the beginnings of those controlling this country
today. Carrying the fight against the Negro still further, these laboring
classes used their influence to obtain legislation against the employment
of Negroes in certain pursuits. Maryland and Georgia passed laws
restricting the privileges of Negro mechanics, and Pennsylvania followed
their example.[6]

Even in those cases when the Negroes were not disturbed in their new homes
on free soil, it was, with the exception of the Quaker and a few other
communities, merely an act of toleration.[7] It must not be concluded,
however, that the Negroes then migrating to the North did not receive
considerable aid. The fact to be no