Editing History of Liberia (section)

===Rejection of colonization in the United States===
Free people of color in the United States, with a few notable exceptions, overwhelmingly rejected the idea of moving to Liberia, or anywhere else in Africa, from the very beginning of the movement. Most of them had lived in the United States for generations, and while they wanted better treatment, they did not want to leave.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Averting a Crisis: The Proslavery Critique of the American Colonization Society|first=Douglas R.|last=Egerton|journal=[[Civil War History]]|volume=43|number=2|date=June 1997|pages=142–156|doi=10.1353/cwh.1997.0099|s2cid=143549872 |via=[[Project MUSE]]|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/421411/pdf|access-date=August 19, 2020|archive-date=July 24, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724144305/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/421411/pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|143}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wesley |first=Dorothy Porter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gaUFeuToWhwC&pg=PA250 |title=Early Negro Writing, 1760–1837 |date=1995 |publisher=Black Classic Press |isbn=978-0-933121-59-1 |pages=250 |language=en |access-date=August 19, 2020 |archive-date=August 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819151300/https://books.google.com/books?id=gaUFeuToWhwC&pg=PA250 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{efn|As soon as they heard about it, 3,000 blacks packed a church in Philadelphia, "the [[bellwether]] city for free blacks", and "bitterly and unanimously" denounced it.<ref name=Irvine>{{cite journal|title=The Noyes Academy, 1834–35: The Road to the Oberlin Collegiate Institute and the Higher Education of African-Americans in the Nineteenth Century|last1=Irvine|first1=Russell W.|last2=Dunkerton|first2=Donna Zani|journal=Western Journal of Black Studies|date=Winter 1998|volume=22|issue=4|pages=260–273}}</ref>{{rp|261}}}} In response to the proposal for blacks to move to Africa, [[Frederick Douglass]] said "Shame upon the guilty wretches that dare propose, and all that countenance such a proposition. We live here—have lived here—have a right to live here, and mean to live here."<ref name=Courant>{{cite news|title=Re-Creating 1834 Debates on Abolition|first=Jesse|last=Leavenworth|newspaper=[[Hartford Courant]]|url=https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2003-05-22-0305221555-story.html|date=May 22, 2003|access-date=August 19, 2020|archive-date=January 27, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200127202141/https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2003-05-22-0305221555-story.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Starting in 1831 with [[William Lloyd Garrison]]'s new newspaper, ''[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]'', and followed by his [https://archive.org/details/thoughtsonafric02garrgoog/page/n9 ''Thoughts on African Colonization''] in 1832, support for colonization dropped, particularly in Northern free states. Garrison and his followers supported the idea of "immediatism," calling for immediate emancipation of all slaves and the legal prohibition of slavery throughout the United States. The ACS, Garrison declared, was "a creature without heart, without brains, eyeless, unnatural, hypocritical, relentless and unjust."<ref name=Wile/>{{rp|15}} It was not, in his view, a plan to eliminate slavery; rather, it was a way to protect it.<ref name=Wile>{{cite book
|last=Wiggins
|first=John H.
|title=A review of anti-abolition sermon, preached at Pleasant Valley, N. Y., by Rev. Benjamin F. Wile, August, 1838
|date=1838
|location=[[Whitesboro, New York]]
|url=https://archive.org/details/reviewofantiabol00wigg/page/n3
|publisher=Press of the [[Oneida Institute]]}}</ref>{{rp|13, 15}}

The ACS was made up of a combination of [[abolitionism in the United States|abolitionists]] who wanted to end slavery—it was easier to get slaves freed if they agreed to go to Liberia—and slaveholders who wanted to get rid of free people of color.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eaton |first1=Clement |title=Henry Clay and the art of American politics |date=1957 |publisher=Boston, Little, Brown |page=133 |url=https://archive.org/details/henryclayartof00eato |access-date=26 August 2020}}</ref> [[Henry Clay]], one of the founders of the group, had inherited slaves as a young child, but adopted antislavery views in the 1790s under the influence of his mentor, [[George Wythe]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Heidler |first1=David Stephen |title=Henry Clay |date=2010 |publisher=Random House |pages=19–21 |isbn=9781400067268 |url=https://archive.org/details/henryclayessenti00heid_0 |access-date=26 August 2020}}</ref> Garrison pointed out that the number of free people of color who actually resettled in Liberia was minute in comparison to the number of slaves in the United States. As put by one of his supporters: "As a remedy for slavery, it must be placed amongst the grossest of all delusions. In fifteen years it has transported less than three thousand persons to the African coast; while the ''increase'' on their numbers, in the same period, is about seven hundred thousand!"<ref name=Wile/>