onized public sentiment,
which has given birth to severe legislative enactments in some of
the States, and almost ruined our interests and prospects in
others, in which, in the opinion of your Committee, our situation
is more precarious than it has been at any other period since the
Declaration of Independence.

"The events of the past year have been more fruitful in
persecution, and have presented more inducements than any other
period of the history of our country, for the men of color to fly
from the graves of their fathers, and seek new homes in a land
where the roaring billows of prejudice are less injurious to
their rights and privileges.

"Your Committee would now approach the present Convention and
examine the resolution under consideration, beginning with the
first interrogatory, viz.: Is it proper for the Free people of
color in this country, under existing circumstances, to remove to
any distant territory beyond the United States?

"If we admit the first interrogatory to be true, as it is the
exact spirit of the language of this resolution, now under
consideration, it is altogether unnecessary for us to make
further preparation for either our moral, intellectual, or
political advancement in this our own, our native land.

"Your Committee also believe that if this Convention shall adopt
a resolution that will, as soon as means can be obtained, remove
our colored population to the province of Upper Canada, the best
and brightest prospect of the philanthropists who are laboring
for our elevation in this country will be thwarted, and they will
be brought to the conclusion that the great object which actuated
their labors would now be removed, and they might now rest from
their labors and have the painful feeling of transmitting to
future generations, that an oppressed people, in the land of
their birth, supported by the genuine philanthropists of the age,
amidsts friends, companions, and their natural attachments, a
genial clime, a fruitful soil,--amidst the rays of as proud
institutions as ever graced the most favored spot that has ever
received the glorious rays of a meridian sun,--have abandoned
their homes on account of their persecutions, for a home almost
similarly precarious, for an abiding-place among strangers!