gold Ward, Henry Highland Garnet, Charles L. Remond, and Henry Bibb were there and made speeches which were received with surprise and gratification by the thousands there assembled. As a colored man I felt greatly encouraged and strengthened for my cause while listening to these men, in the presence of the ablest men of the Caucasian race. Mr. Ward especially attracted attention at that convention. As an orator and thinker he was vastly superior, I thought, to any of us, and being perfectly black and of unmixed African descent, the splendors of his intellect went directly to the glory of race. In depth of thought, fluency of speech, readiness of wit, logical exactness, and general intelligence, Samuel R. Ward has left no successor among the colored men amongst us, and it was a sad day for our cause when he was laid low in the soil of a foreign country."[1]
The next decade opened with over three and one-half millions of Negroes in the United States—an enormous increase since 1840—and a remarkable indication of virility and prosperity despite the new Fugitive Slave Law. The Canadian Negroes were being organized in the Elgin and other settlements, the colored Baptists reported 150,000 members, and the Negroes of New York, replying to the Black Law recommendations of Governor Ward Hunt, proved unincumbered ownership of $1,160,000 worth of property. The escape of fugitive slaves was now systematized in the Underground Railroad and in the
