The proceedings of these meetings will throw much light on the excitement then prevailing among the free people of color in the border and Northern States.  In 1831 a Baltimore meeting, led by William Douglass and William Watkins, expressed the belief that the American Colonization Society was founded “more upon selfish policy than in the true principles of benevolence; and, therefore, as far as it regards the life-giving spring of its operations,” that it was not entitled to their confidence, and should be viewed by them with that caution and distrust which their happiness demanded.  They considered the land in which they had been born and bred their only “true and appropriate home,” and declared that when they desired to remove they would apprise the public of the same, in due season.[24] That same year a large meeting of colored people of Washington, in the District of Columbia, convened for the purpose of expressing their opinion on this important question.  Although they knew that among the advocates of the colonizing system, they had many true and sincere friends, they declared that the efforts of these philanthropists, though prompted no doubt by the purest motives, should be viewed with distress.  They further asserted that, as the soil which gave them birth was their only true and veritable home, it would be impolitic, if they should leave their home without the benefit of education.[25] A meeting of the very same order of the free people of color of Wilmington, Delaware, that year, led by Peter Spencer and Thomas Dorsey, took the position that the colonization movement was inimical to the best interests of the colored people, and at variance with the principles of civil and religious liberty, and wholly incompatible with the spirit of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence of the United States.[26]

A meeting of free colored people held in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1831, was of the opinion that none should leave the United States, but if there were or should be any expatriated in consequence of abuses from their white countrymen, it was advisable to recommend them to Haiti or Upper Canada where they would find equal laws.  In regard to their being sent to Africa, because they were natives of that land, they asked:  “How can a man be born in two countries at the same time?” In refutation of the argument made by the Colonization Society, that the establishment of the colony in Liberia would prevent the further operation of the slave trade, they said:  “We might as well argue that a watchman in the city of Boston would prevent thievery in New York; or that the custom house officers there would prevent goods being smuggled into any other port of the United States."[27] Because there were in the United States much better lands on which a colony might be established, and at a much cheaper expense to those who promoted it, than could possibly be had by sending them into “a howling wilderness across the seas,” they questioned the philanthropy of the promoters of African colonization and adopted resolutions in opposition to the movement.[28]