might lead in the higher pursuits and others might skilfully serve their
fellows.[5] Private enterprise was at first depended on to carry out the
schemes but it soon became evident that a better method was necessary.
Finally out of the proposals of various thinkers and out of the actual
colonization feats of Paul Cuffé, a Negro, came a national meeting for
this purpose, held in Washington, December, 1816, and the organization of
the American Colonization Society. This meeting was attended by some of
the most prominent men in the United States, among whom were Henry Clay,
Francis S. Key, Bishop William Meade, John Randolph and Judge Bushrod
Washington.

The American Colonization Society, however, failed to facilitate the
movement of the free Negro from the South and did not promote the general
welfare of the race. The reasons for these failures are many. In the first
place, the society was all things to all men. To the anti-slavery man
whose ardor had been dampened by the meagre results obtained by his
agitation, the scheme was the next best thing to remove the objections of
slaveholders who had said they would emancipate their bondsmen, if they
could be assured of their being deported to foreign soil. To the radical
proslavery man and to the northerner hating the Negro it was well adapted
to rid the country of the free persons of color whom they regarded as the
pariahs of society.[6] Furthermore, although the Colonization Society
became seemingly popular and the various States organized branches of it
and raised money to promote the movement, the slaveholders as a majority
never reached the position of parting with their slaves and the country
would not take such radical action as to compel free Negroes to undergo
expatriation when militant abolitionists were fearlessly denouncing the
scheme.[7]

The free people of color themselves were not only not anxious to go but