In view of these facts the methods of the colonization society appeared utterly futile.

Birney surrendered his commission and, in 1833, returned to Kentucky with the intention of doing himself what Henry Clay had refused to do three years earlier, still hoping that Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee might be induced to abolish slavery and thus place the slave power in a hopeless minority.

His disappointment was extreme at the pro-slavery reaction which had taken place in Kentucky.

The condition called for more drastic measures, and Birney decided to forsake entirely the colonization society and cast in his lot with the abolitionists.

He freed his slaves in 1834, and in the following year he delivered the principal address at the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society held in New York.