Richmond Enquirer

From Baltimore, we hear that the General Assembly of the Manumission Societies was actually held in that city last week, though the papers of that city prudentially have been wholly silent on the subject. We do not learn that any proceedings took place calculated to give uneasiness to those whose concerns Societies of this description interfere unwarrantably, where they interfere at all. There was a good deal of discussion, with open doors, which rather had a tendency, as we learn to weaken the claims of the Assembly to the title of "Congress of Visionaries," which we thought not inaptly applied to them, when their convention was first announced. A proposition to approve of the scheme of the African Colonization Society was voted down. The most decisive measure resulting from the meeting, seems to have been a recommendation to petition Congress to appropriate money for transporting abroad such slaves as may from time to time be manumitted. This recommendation proposes nothing contrary to the Constitution, or hostile to the interests of the South; and we are glad to learn that a majority of the General Assembly had no worse projects in view.

From every thing that falls under our observation it is obvious, whatever a few fanatical persons may propose to themselves, that no respectable portion of our fellow citizens of the East have the slightest intention to act upon, or in reference to, this subject, in any manner contrary to the known views or wishes of the States of the South. This being the case, we hope we shall never hear of another Convention of this sort: for, however it may propose to limit its operations, the actual effect of every such an assembly is, from misapprehension of the scope of its aim, to alarm the proprietors, and to unsettle the foundation of the public peace, in a portion of our country. In mere friendship to the slave, in real humanity to their fellow man, these Associations, and the individuals composing them ought to forbear: for it is a proposition as demonstrable as any to be found in Euclid, that rigor of treatment and severity of discipline must be increased by insecurity of tenure and relaxation of subordination, which are the necessary consequences of the agitation produced by these convocations.

[Nat. Int.