of caste and the incorporation of undesirable persons into the "Body
Politick," the Quakers proceeded on the principle that all men are
brethren and, being equal before God, should be considered equal before
the law. On account of unduly emphasizing the relation of man to God, the
Puritans "atrophied their social humanitarian instinct" and developed into
a race of self-conscious saints. Believing in human nature and laying
stress upon the relation between man and man, the Quakers became the
friends of all humanity.[4]

In 1693 George Keith, a leading Quaker of his day, came forward as a
promoter of the religious training of the slaves as a preparation for
emancipation. William Penn advocated the emancipation of slaves, that they
might have every opportunity for improvement. In 1695 the Quakers while
protesting against the slave trade denounced also the policy of neglecting
their moral and spiritual welfare.[5] The growing interest of this sect in
the Negroes was shown later by the development in 1713 of a definite
scheme for freeing and returning them to Africa after having been educated
and trained to serve as missionaries on that continent.

When the manumission of the slaves was checked by the reaction against
that class and it became more of a problem to establish them in a hostile
environment, certain Quakers of North Carolina and Virginia adopted the
scheme of settling them in Northern States.[6] At first, they sent such
freedmen to Pennsylvania. But for various reasons this did not prove to be
the best asylum. In the first place, Pennsylvania bordered on the slave
States, Maryland and Virginia, from which agents came to kidnap free
Negroes. Furthermore, too many Negroes were already rushing to that
commonwealth as the Negroes' heaven and there was the chance that the
Negroes might be settled elsewhere in the North, where they might have
better economic opportunities.[7] A committee of forty was accordingly