intellectual and moral condition, — which is to be ascribed in great part, no doubt, to their anomalous situation, as being neither slaves nor possessing the usual rights and prospects of freemen, — has excited in many minds a question whether the blacks, emancipated under such circumstances, are real gainers in any great degree, either as to mental improvement or physical comfort, by the change.
"The circumstance," says Mr. Freeman, "that there are so few blacks that, with their freedom, avoid poverty and vice, nobly resisting the natural tendency of their condition, has led some to suppose, that however undesirable in itself slavery may be, the blacks generally gain but little, and in most instances are great losers, by emancipation. The free blacks are, as a whole, exceedingly corrupt, depraved, and abandoned. There are, indeed, many honorable exceptions among them, and it is often a pleasure which I enjoy, of bearing testimony to these exceptions; but the vicious and degraded habits and propensities of this class are known to every man of attentive observation. It has been asserted, that of free blacks collected in our cities and large towns, a great portion are found in abodes of wretchedness and vice, and become tenants of poorhouses and prisons. As a proof of this tendency of their condition, the following striking facts, among others, have been mentioned. In the State of Massachusetts, where the colored population is small, only one seventy-fourth part of the whole population, — about one sixth of all the convicts in the State-prison are blacks. In Connecticut one part ofthirty-fourth the population is colored, and one third part of the
