When two races, occupying the same territory and living side by side, differ so widely in their physical features, in their interests and in their attainments, as do the white and colored races in this country, it is most natural and indeed almost inevitable that prejudice should arise between them. The institution of slavery has no doubt created a caste feeling on the part of the master race, and yet this is but the strengthening and deepening of a natural race antipathy, the causes for which are evident. Slavery merely intensified a feeling that was due to other causes. It is an error to say that slavery has been the cause of all the prejudice against the negro.[235] It is true that the black race long wore the chain of slavery and was regarded as an inferior race, and this was true in the United States as well as elsewhere; but the reason for the antagonistic feeling lies deeper than that fact.[236] An indication of the existence of racial prejudice during the period of slavery is found in a report adopted at the “Second Annual Convention of the People of Color” which met at Philadelphia in June, 1832. This convention, composed of free negroes, adopted a resolution in which the following passage occurs: “The recent occurrences at the South have swelled the tide of prejudice until it has almost revolutionized public sentiment, which has given birth to severe legislative enactments in some of the States, and almost ruined our interests and prospects in others, in which, in the opinion of your Committee, our situation is more precarious than it has been at any other period since the Declaration of Independence. The events of the past year have been more fruitful in persecution, and have presented more inducements than any other period of the history of our country, for the men of color to fly from the graves of their fathers, and seek new homes in a land where the roaring billows of prejudice are less injurious to their rights and privileges.”[237]