negro in the State; and yet one-sixth of all the convicts were free
negroes. That in Connecticut the free negroes were 1 to 34; and that
one-third of the convicts were free negroes. That in New York the free
negroes were 1 to 35; but that one-fourth of the convicts were free
negroes. That in New Jersey the free negroes were 1 to 13; negro
convicts one-third. That in Pennsylvania the free negroes were 1 to 34,
and that one-third of the convicts were free negroes. He moreover
stated, that one-fourth of the whole expense connected with the prison
system of the entire North was incurred by crime committed by free
negroes; and that the same was true with regard to the pauper
expenditures of the entire North. In view of these facts, we can feel
but little surprise, that Indiana and Illinois have enacted laws to
interdict the immigration of free negroes into those States.

It appears from the above named States, that in 1845, about
_one-fortieth_ of the entire population in the free States were
colored persons; and yet about _one-fourth_ of the convicts were free
negroes; but notwithstanding that the colored and the white population
are very nearly balanced in the slave States, I do not suppose that
one in a hundred of the convicts are negroes! But there is another
fact with regard to free negroes North, that is still more remarkable!
Few, comparatively, very few, are members of any branch of the
church--probably not one in twenty of the entire adult population.
But, on the contrary, in the slave States, I think it probable that at
least three-fourths of the entire adult slave population are church
members; and I presume, that near one-half of the African professors
of the Christian religion, in the slave States, are attached to the
Methodist Episcopal Church South; and strange as it may appear, it is
nevertheless true, that in the very hot-bed of abolitionism, viz., in
the extensive territory of New England, Providence, Maine, Vermont and