Editing Lane Seminary (section)

===Background===
====The abolition–colonization controversy====
Part of "the negro problem", as it was seen in the [[Antebellum South|antebellum]] United States, was the question of what to do with former slaves who had become free. Since the eighteenth century, Quakers and others had preached the sinfulness of slave ownership, and the number of [[freedmen]] (and freed women) was rising and showed every sign that it would continue to grow. The freed slaves married and had children, so the number of [[free people of color]] (Blacks born free) was rising even faster. Some owners freed their slaves in their wills. Philanthropic societies and individuals raised or donated funds to purchase slaves' freedom; freedmen sometimes were able to purchase the freedom of family members. In some Northern cities there were more than a handful of escaped slaves.

The status of these free blacks was anything but comfortable. They were not citizens and in most states could not vote. They had no access to the courts or protection by the police. In no state could their children attend the public schools. They were subject to discriminatory treatment in everyday life.

The original "remedy" for this problem was to help them go "back to Africa". The British had been doing this, in [[Sierra Leone]], moving former American slaves there who had gained their freedom by escaping to British lines during the [[American Revolution]], and who found [[Nova Scotia]], where the British took many of them, too cold.{{Efn|See [[Black Nova Scotians]].}} The British also took to Sierra Leone slaves captured from slaving ships who were being smuggled illegally across the Atlantic to North America. A well-to-do African-American shipowner, [[Paul Cuffe]], transported some former slaves to Sierra Leone.

However, sending former slaves to a British colony as a policy was politically unacceptable. The American Colonization Society was formed to help found a new, American colony of freed blacks. Although there was some talk of locating the colony in the American territories of the Midwest, or on the Pacific coast—a sort of reservation for Blacks<ref>{{cite journal
|title='Its Origin Is Not a Little Curious': A New Look at the American Colonization Society
|first=Douglas R.
|last=Egerton
|journal=[[Journal of the Early Republic]]
|volume=5
|number=4
|date=Winter 1985
|pages=463–480, at p. 466
|doi=10.2307/3123062
|jstor=3123062
}}</ref>—what was decided was to follow the English example and start an African colony. The closest available land was what became [[History of Liberia|Liberia]].

====The rejection of colonization====
The colonization project got off to a promising start, with various governmental and private donations and the participation of distinguished individuals: U.S. presidents Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison; Senator [[Henry Clay]], who presided over its first meeting; as well as most of the future white abolitionists. The problem had been solved, and in an honorable way; the former slaves would fare better in Africa, it was argued, among other blacks.

The situation quickly started to unravel. First of all, the disease rates among the new colonists were the highest since accurate record-keeping began. Over 50% of them died of malaria and other diseases.

Particularly telling to [[Gerrit Smith]], an abolitionist philanthropist, was that the American Colonization Society allowed the sale of alcohol (as well as guns and chewing tobacco) in the colonies that became Liberia. He commented on it in the Society's ''African Repository'' magazine. Smith was for temperance, and according to him, the fact that blacks in Africa were allowed to import liquor from the United States revealed the true goals of many of the white members of the American Colonization Society: to get rid of the Blacks without having them up north.