We know now that the claim was not founded on fact, that while they did stand together they did not fall together.

But the position was, nevertheless, the strongest possible one for the anti-slavery movement to occupy at the time.

In the disposition of the pro-slavery forces on the field of the opening conflict in 1832, the colonization scheme commanded the important approaches to the citadel of the peculiar institution.

It cut off the passes to public opinion, and to the religious and benevolent influences of the land.

To reach these it was necessary in the first place to dislodge the society from its coign of vantage, its strategical point in the agitation.