4



then the minister invited him and another lawyer to meet
Weld at dinner at his house.
  Here, also, the rigrht of property in man problem was in
order. But to the stunning surprise of the minister, he
learned that Birney was already fully convinced, intellect-
ually, that only the right of the kidnapper could be urged for
holding such property ; and that kidnapped human chattels
could never be owned, or held as lawful possessions, though
sanctified by transfer and conveyance through a thousand
generations
  The discussion continued, earnest and more earnest, all day
and evening, even the minister's wife leaning to the Birney
side; tea was had and drank; and at a late hour Mr. Birney
invited Weld to dinner next day with him, and to come to
his office in the morning. And he went in the morningf and
found his host in profound meditation, sitting alone in the
inner office, and readv to confess that he had slept only little
the past night, but that he was fully assrired of his duty, and
that his slaves must have their freedom, then numbering, as
Mr. Weld now thinks, forty-two.
  Mr. Birney had for some years been giving much thought
to the African-colonization system. He had even accepted
an agency in that iniquitous and slavery devised and slavery
cherished enterprise, his field of operations including five of
the large slaveholding states. But he soon found himself
laboring in the interest of a movement adapted and intended
to perpetuate the very curse he himself deplored, and was
working, as he supposed, to destroy.
  So, having already liberated his slaves, and generously
provided for their well-being and well-doing so far as he
wvag able, he espoused the cause of "immediate and uncon-
ditional emancipatioDn," and by purse, pen, and voice com-
mencedits proclaination. Driven fromhis native state for his
anti-slavery fidelity, lie crossed over into Ohio and estab-
lished an anti-slavery newspaper. But he was repeatedly
mobbed, his press, types, paper, and other office property
being( taken out and sunk in the Ohio river, the city authori-
ties in large numbers evidently sanctioning, as did many of