nourished by fear and selfishness, that it aimed at the utter expulsion of the blacks, that it was the disparager of free Negroes, that it denied the possibility of elevating the black people of the country, and that it deceived and misled the nation.  Other criticisms were numerous.  A broadside, “The Shields of American Slavery” ("Broad enough to hide the wrongs of two millions of stolen men”) placed side by side conflicting utterances of members of the Society; and in August, 1830, Kendall, fourth auditor, in his report to the Secretary of the Navy, wondered why the resources of the government should be used “to colonize recaptured Africans, to build homes for them, to furnish them with farming utensils, to pay instructors to teach them, to purchase ships for their convenience, to build forts for their protection, to supply them with arms and munitions of war, to enlist troops to guard them, and to employ the army and navy in their defense."[2] Criticism of the American Colonization Society was prompted by a variety of motives; but the organization made itself vulnerable at many points.  The movement attracted extraordinary attention, but has had practically no effect whatever on the position of the Negro in the United States.  Its work in connection with the founding of Liberia, however, is of the highest importance, and must later receive detailed attention.

[Footnote 1:  See Jervey:  Robert Y. Hayne and His Times, 207-8.]

[Footnote 2:  Cited by McPherson, 22.]

3. Slavery

We have seen that from the beginning there were liberal-minded men in the South who opposed the system of slavery, and if we actually take note of all the utterances of different men and of the proposals for doing away with the system, we shall find that about the turn of the century there was in this section considerable anti-slavery sentiment.  Between 1800 and 1820, however, the opening of new lands in the Southwest, the increasing emphasis on cotton, and the rapidly growing Negro population, gave force to the argument of expediency; and the Missouri Compromise drew sharply the lines of the contest.  The South now came to regard slavery as its peculiar heritage; public men were forced to defend the institution; and in general the best thought of the section began to be obsessed and dominated by the Negro, just as it is to-day in large measure.  In taking this position the South deliberately committed intellectual suicide.  In such matters as freedom of speech and literary achievement, and in genuine statesmanship if not for the time being in political influence, this part of the country declined, and before long the difference between it and New England was appalling.  Calhoun and Hayne were strong; but between 1820 and 1860 the South had no names to compare with Longfellow and Emerson in literature, or with Morse and Hoe in invention.  The foremost college professor, Dew, of William and Mary, and even the outstanding divines, Furman, the