'We have been charged with wishing only to remove our free blacks, that we may the more effectually rivet the chains of the slave. But the class we first seek to remove, are neither freemen nor slaves; _but between both_, AND MORE MISERABLE THAN EITHER.' * * * 'Who is there, that does not know something of the condition of the blacks in the northern and middle States? They may be seen in our cities and larger towns, wandering like foreigners and outcasts, in the land which gave them birth. They may be seen in our penitentiaries, and jails, and poor-houses. They may be found inhabiting the abodes of poverty, and the haunts of vice. But if we look for them in the society of the honest and respectable--if we visit the schools in which it is our boast that the meanest citizen can enjoy the benefits of instruction--we might also add, if we visit the sanctuaries which are open for all to worship,[S] and to hear the word of God; we shall not find them there.' * * 'Leaving slavery and its subjects for the moment entirely out of view, there are in the United States 238,000 blacks denominated free, but whose freedom confers on them, we might say, no privilege but the _privilege of being more vicious and miserable than slaves can be_.'--[Seventh Annual Report, pp. 12, 87, 99.] 'Placed midway between freedom and slavery, they know neither the incentives of the one, nor the restraints of the other; but are alike injurious by their conduct and example, to all other classes of society.'--[Eight Annual Report.] 'Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free colored. It is the inevitable result of their moral, political, and civil degradation. Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them, to the slaves and to the whites.'--[Tenth Annual Report.]