Garrison’s vindication of the free people of color in Exeter Hall, London, on July 13, 1833, from this sort of detraction and villification is of historic value: 

“Sir,” said he, addressing the chair, “it is not possible for the mind to coin, or the tongue to utter baser libels against an injured people.  Their condition is as much superior to that of the slaves as the light of heaven is more cheering than the darkness of the pit.  Many of their number are in the most affluent circumstances, and distinguished for their refinement, enterprise, and talents.  They have flourishing churches, supplied by pastors of their own color, in various parts of the land, embracing a large body of the truly excellent of the earth.  They have public and private libraries.  They have their temperance societies, their debating societies, their moral societies, their literary societies, their benevolent societies, their saving societies, and a multitude of kindred associations.  They have their infant schools, their primary and high schools, their sabbath schools, and their Bible classes.  They contribute to the support of foreign and domestic missions to Bible and tract societies, etc.  In the city of Philadelphia alone they have more than fifty associations for moral and intellectual improvement.  In fact, they are rising up, even with mountains of prejudice piled upon them, with more than Titanic strength, and trampling beneath their feet the slanders of their enemies.  A spirit of virtuous emulation is pervading their ranks, from the young child to the gray head.  Among them is taken a large number of daily and weekly newspapers, and of literary and scientific periodicals, from the popular monthlies up to the grave and erudite North American and American Quarterly Reviews.  I have at this moment, to my own paper, the Liberator, one thousand subscribers among this people; and, from an occupancy of the editorial chair for more than seven years, I can testify that they are more punctual in their payments than any five hundred white subscribers whose names I ever placed indiscriminately in my subscription book.”

There was an earnest desire on the part of the free people of color to raise the level of their class in the Union.  At a convention held by them in Philadelphia, in 1831, they resolved upon a measure calculated to make up, to some extent, the deprivations which their children were suffering by being excluded from the higher schools of learning in the land.  So they determined to establish a college on the manual-labor system for the education of colored youth.  They appealed for aid to their benevolent friends, and fixed upon New Haven as the place to build their institution.  Arthur Tappan, with customary beneficence, “purchased several acres of land, in the southerly part of the city, and made arrangements for the erection of a suitable building, and furnishing it with needful supplies, in a way to do honor to the city and country.”