Although antagonism to African Colonization was pronounced in the Northern free States, there were several intelligent colored men who were strongly in favor of it.  It was said, however, that such Negroes had usually been educated or aided in some way by the American Colonization Society.  One of this class of spokesmen was George Baltimore, of Whitehall.  In reading in the National Watchman a notice for a call for a national convention of colored people to be held in Troy, in 1847, he availed himself of the opportunity to speak for the Colonization Society.  Referring to the suggestions set forth in the call, the writer said that he could adopt all of them excepting the one to recommend emigration and colonization not of Africa, Asia, or Europe.  He considered this a fling at the American Colonization Society, and those people of color who were desirous of going to their fatherland.[68] Another spokesman of this order was Alphonso M. Sumner, of Philadelphia.  Personally he was in favor of emigrating from the United States and was of the opinion that, at that time at least, colonization in Liberia offered the only tangible means of attaining their wishes.  He believed that the abolition of the slave trade could be attained in no other way, but like most colored men in the free States, favoring colonization, he was desirous of knowing something about the land before emigrating thereto.[69]

Writing from Hartford in 1851, Augustus Washington stated that he was well aware that there could be nothing more startling than that a Northern colored man, considered intelligent and sound in faith, should declare his opinion and use his influence in favor of African colonization.  He maintained, however, that the novelty of the thing did not prove it false any more than it would be to say that because one breaks away from a long-established custom he may not have the least reason for doing so.  He urged the free colored people to emigrate from the crowded cities to less populous parts of the United States, to the Great West or to Africa, or to any place where they might secure an equality of rights and liberties with a mind unfettered and space in which to rise.  Moreover, from the time he was a lad of fifteen years of age, and especially since the Mexican War, he had advocated the plan of a separate State for the colored people.[70] In a letter addressed to the editor of the African Repository, in 1853, Nathaniel Bowen undertook to express similar views.  Although they possessed only partial freedom in this country, the free colored people of his city, Rome, New York, were generally against colonization.  Moreover, he found many colored people who talked of and favored going to Canada, but he believed if those persons would take their interests into consideration, they would not hesitate to go to Africa.[71]