[488] Writing of conditions in this country prior to the American Revolution, Anne Grant found only two cases of miscegenation in Albany before this period but saw it well established later by the British soldiers. Johann Schoepf--witnessed this situation in Charleston in 1784. J. P. Brissot saw this tendency toward miscegenation as a striking feature of society among the French in the Ohio Valley in 1788. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was very much impressed with the numerous quadroons and octoroons of New Orleans in 1825 and Charles Gayarre portrayed the same conditions there in 1830. Frederika Bremer frequently met with this class while touring the South in 1850. See Grant, _Memoirs of An American Lady_, p. 28; Schoepf, _Travels in the Confederation_, II, p. 382; Brissot, _Travels_, II, p. 61; Saxe-Weimar, _Travels_, II, p. 69; Grace King, _New Orleans_, pp. 346-349; Frederika Bremer, _Homes of the New World_, I, pp. 325, 326, 382, 385. [489] _The American Journal of Sociology_, XXII, p. 98. [490] _Ibid._, XXII, p. 98. [491] See Russell, _Free Negro in Virginia_, p. 127. [492] Goodell, _Slave Code_, p. 376. [493] _The Liberator_, December 19, 1845. [494] Swisshelm, _Half a Century_, p. 129. GERRIT SMITH'S EFFORT IN BEHALF OF THE NEGROES IN NEW YORK During the first half of the nineteenth century, the condition of the free Negroes in the Southern States became more and more critical. The doctrine of the rights of man, which had swept over the world in the latter part of the eighteenth century had had its effect on the colonists and resulted in the manumission of many slaves. These freedmen taking advantage of their economic and educational opportunities became an ever increasing menace to the social institutions that had no foundation except that of slavery. Ambitious, often aggressive, they were a constant source of dissatisfaction because of the unhappy comparison of their lot with that of the slaves. They, moreover, encouraged the slaves to improve their condition and to escape to the North. This situation was rendered still more critical for the reason that the South, considering slavery indispensable to its economic life, was already being lashed into a frenzy to gain new slave territory and to strengthen the institution by every possible method of oppression of the blacks. Measures inimical to the economic progress of freedmen were enacted.[495] Many who had been manumitted were seized and again reduced to slavery. Educational opportunities were restricted or denied. Legally they were without voice and hence could secure no redress when wronged.[496]