ng these protagonists were Samuel E. Cornish, and Theodore S.
Wright, who without doubt voiced the sentiments of the majority of the free
colored people in the North. These leaders took occasion in 1840 to attack
Theodore Frelinghuysen and Benjamin Butler who had been reported as saying
that the colonization project had been received with delight by the colored
people.[60] Answering this assertion, they maintained that "if it was said
of Southern slaves--if it had been asserted that they yearned for Africa
or indeed, any part of the world, even more unhospitable and unhappy, where
they might be free from their masters, there probably would have been no
one to dissent from that opinion." But to prove that this was not the
situation among the free people of color these spokesmen related numerous
facts, showing that in various conventions from year to year the free
blacks had protested against emigration to Africa.[61]

The greatest enemy of the Colonization Society among the freedmen,
however, was yet to appear. This was Frederick Douglass. At the National
Convention of Free People of Color, held at Rochester, New York, in 1853,
he was called upon to write the address to the colored people of the United
States. A significant expression in this address was: "We ask that no
appropriation whatever, State or national, be granted to the colonization
scheme. We would have our right to leave or remain in the United States
placed above legislative interference."[62] He had already gone on record
in writing to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe in reply to her inquiry as to the
best thing to be done for the elevation of the colored people. "Evidently
the Society," said he, "looks upon our extremity as their opportunity and
whenever the elements are started against us they are stimulated to
immeasurable activity. They do not deplore our misfortunes but rather
rejoice in them."[63] He referred to the Society as the twin sister of
slavery, still at her post fostering prejudice against the colored man and
scattering abroad her hateful unphilosophical dogmas as to the inferiority
of the Negro and the necessity of his expatriation for his elevation and
that of his white country men. "The truth is," said he, "we are here and
here we are likely to remain. Individuals emigrate, nations never. We have
grown up with this republic and I see nothing in her character or find in
the character of the American people as yet, which compels the belief that
we