Excerpt from The Martyr Age of the United States of America: With an Appeal on Behalf of the Oberlin Institute in Aid of the Abolition of Slavery Ten years ago there was external quiet on the sub ject of slavery in the United States. Jefferson and other great men had prophesied national peril from it a few legislators had talked of doing something to me liorate the condition of society in their respective States the institution had been abolished in some of the northern States, where the number of negroes was small, and the work of emancipation easy and obvious ly desirable: an insurrection broke out occasionally, in one place or another; and certain sections of so ciety were in a state of perplexity or alarm at the tal ents, or the demeanor, or the increase of numbers of the free blacks. But no such thing had been heard of as a comprehensive and strenuously active objec tion to the whole system, wherever established. The surface of society was heaving but no one surge had broken into voice, prophetic of that chorus of many waters in which the doom of the institution may now be heard. Yet clear sighted persons saw that some great change must take place ere long for a scheme was under trial for removing the obnoxious part of the negro population to Africa. Those of the dusky race who were too clever, and those who were too stupid, to be safe or useful at home, were to be exported and slave-owners who had scruples about holding man as property might, by sending their slaves away over the sea, relieve their consciences without annoying their neighbors. Such was the state of affairs pre vions to 1829. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.