esirous of going
to their fatherland.[68] Another spokesman of this order was Alphonso M.
Sumner, of Philadelphia. Personally he was in favor of emigrating from the
United States and was of the opinion that, at that time at least,
colonization in Liberia offered the only tangible means of attaining their
wishes. He believed that the abolition of the slave trade could be attained
in no other way, but like most colored men in the free States, favoring
colonization, he was desirous of knowing something about the land before
emigrating thereto.[69]

Writing from Hartford in 1851, Augustus Washington stated that he was well
aware that there could be nothing more startling than that a Northern
colored man, considered intelligent and sound in faith, should declare his
opinion and use his influence in favor of African colonization. He
maintained, however, that the novelty of the thing did not prove it false
any more than it would be to say that because one breaks away from a
long-established custom he may not have the least reason for doing so. He
urged the free colored people to emigrate from the crowded cities to less
populous parts of the United States, to the Great West or to Africa, or to
any place where they might secure an equality of rights and liberties with
a mind unfettered and space in which to rise. Moreover, from the time he
was a lad of fifteen years of age, and especially since the Mexican War, he
had advocated the plan of a separate State for the colored people.[70] In a
letter addressed to the editor of the _African Repository_, in 1853,
Nathaniel Bowen undertook to express similar views. Although they possessed
only partial freedom in this country, the free colored people of his city,
Rome, New York, were generally against colonization. Moreover, he found
many colored people who talked of and favored going to Canada, but he
believed if those persons would take their interests into consideration,
they would not hesitate to go to Africa.[71]

The efforts toward emigration too took organized form during the forties
and fifties. In 1848 the free colored people of Dayton, Ohio, held a
meeting to express their sentiments in favor of emigration to Africa, and
to ask the white citizens to aid them in going there.[72] The movement also
reached the colored people of Cincinnati, Ohio.[73] At a meeting held in
that city on the 14th of July, 1850, they adopted a preamble and
resolutions expressing similar sentiments. Goin