and 1836 meetings were held in Philadelphia, and especially were the
students of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati commended for their zeal in
the cause of abolition. A committee was appointed to look into the
dissatisfaction of some emigrants to Liberia and generally to review the
work of the Colonization Society.

[Footnote 1: See Chapter X, Section 3.]

In the decade 1837-1847 Frederick Douglass was outstanding as a leader,
and other men who were now prominent were Dr. James McCune Smith, Rev.
James W.C. Pennington, Alexander Crummell, William C. Nell, and Martin
R. Delany. These are important names in the history of the period. These
were the men who bore the brunt of the contest in the furious days of
Texas annexation and the Compromise of 1850. About 1853 and 1854 there
was renewed interest in the idea of an industrial college; steps were
taken for the registry of Negro mechanics and artisans who were in
search of employment, and of the names of persons who were willing to
give them work; and there was also a committee on historical records and
statistics that was not only to compile studies in Negro biography but
also to reply to any assaults of note.[1]

[Footnote 1: We can not too much emphasize the fact that the leaders
of this period were by no means impractical theorists but men who were
scientifically approaching the social problem of their people. They not
only anticipated such ideas as those of industrial education and of the
National Urban League of the present day, but they also endeavored to
lay firmly the foundations of racial self-respect.]

Immediately after the last of the conventions just mentioned, those who
were interested in emigration and had not been able to get a hearing