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American Colonisation Society, while it pretended to exist solely in the interest of the slave, was bitterly hostile to abolition and abolitionists. Garrison, like everyone else, was at first favorably inclined towards the society; but having examined its claims to confidence, said he found in its publications "little else than sinful palliations, fatal concessions, vain expectations, exaggerated statements, unfriendly representations, glaring contradictions, naked terrors, deceptive assurances, unrelenting prejudices, and unchristian denunciations. These discoveries affected my mind so deeply I could not rest, it was evident to me that the great mass of its supporters in the north did not realise its dangerous tendency." Perceiving its fatal effects, he was "urged by an irresistible impulse to attempt its removal." What, then, was the Colonisation Scheme?

Long before the establishment of the Society, Dr. Hopkins and others had proposed plans for taking all colored people from America to Africa and settling them there, and this was supported by those who were against emancipation and yet wished to get rid of the free negroes. In 1806, Virginia decreed that emancipated slaves should leave the state within a year, or be again reduced to slavery. Prominent men, like Henry Clay, said the colonisationists, were working in a noble cause, they would "rid our country of a useless and pernicious, if not a dangerous portion of the population." John Randolph said the scheme "must materially tend to secure the property of every master in the United States in his slaves." It was asked: "What right have the children of Africa to a home in the white man's country?" The free colored people held meetings everywhere, protesting against what they justly called the cruelty of the scheme; they would never voluntarily separate themselves from the slave population of the country.

In 1818 the Missouri territory—part of which is now known as Arkansas—sought admission as a State into the Union. In