but if there
were or should be any expatriated in consequence of abuses from their white
countrymen, it was advisable to recommend them to Haiti or Upper Canada
where they would find equal laws. In regard to their being sent to Africa,
because they were natives of that land, they asked: "How can a man be born
in two countries at the same time?" In refutation of the argument made by
the Colonization Society, that the establishment of the colony in Liberia
would prevent the further operation of the slave trade, they said: "We
might as well argue that a watchman in the city of Boston would prevent
thievery in New York; or that the custom house officers there would prevent
goods being smuggled into any other port of the United States."[27] Because
there were in the United States much better lands on which a colony might
be established, and at a much cheaper expense to those who promoted it,
than could possibly be had by sending them into "a howling wilderness
across the seas," they questioned the philanthropy of the promoters of
African colonization and adopted resolutions in opposition to the
movement.[28]

A public meeting of colored citizens of New York, with Samuel Ennals and
Philip Bell as promoters, referred to the Colonizationists as men of
"mistaken views" with respect to the welfare and wishes of the colored
people. The meeting solemnly protested against the bold effort to colonize
the oppressed free people of color on the ground that it was "unjust,
illiberal and unfounded; tending to excite prejudice of the community."[29]
At a meeting of the free colored people of Brooklyn, promoted by Henry C.
Thompson and George Hogarth, it was resolved that they knew of no other
country in which they could justly claim or demand their rights as
citizens, whether civil or political, but in the United States of America,
their native soil; and that they would be active in their endeavors to
convince the members of the Colonization Society, and the public generally,
that being men, brethren, and fellow citizens, they were like other
citizens entitled to an equal share of protection from the Federal
Government.[30]

The sentiment of a meeting at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1831, was that the
American Colonization Society was actuated by the same motives which
influenced the mind of Pharaoh, when he ordered the male children of the
Israelites to be destroyed. They believed that the Society was the greatest
of all foes to the free c