It will be seen from this hasty and unsatisfactory review of a great mass of statutes, decisions, and treatises that the condition of the free colored man north of Mason and Dixon’s line improved in the main from the close of the revolution to 1860, and that south of Mason and Dixon’s line his condition grew worse from the close of the revolution down to 1860. In the West, where new States were forming, there was, of course, the distinction of race. The settlers who went into these new communities went there to establish white communities and they passed laws forbidding the immigration of free colored people into them. We find statutes in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kansas, and Oregon, forbidding the immigration of free Negroes. It seems, however, that there was never a very strong public sentiment insisting upon the enforcement of these laws. As a matter of fact there was a small active and effective sentiment which practically nullified the existence of them, for in all of these States we find, especially after the enactment of the fugitive slave law of 1850, a most friendly sentiment toward the unfortunate colored man whether slave or free. The study of the statutes and conditions of more than a half century ago is not only a matter of curiosity, but a matter of very practical concern, since in these latter days another body of laws, and legal decisions based upon distinction of race have come into existence, and yet others are threatened. Arthur A. Schomburg. The Economic Contribution by the Negro to America