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The American Colonization Society was formed in 1816 to facilitate a swift return to Africa for Black people who had been unchained.
As a lawyer Key was a pure mercenary. He represented several slaves seeking their freedom in court, as well as several White slaveholders seeking the return of runaways. He used his position as U.S. Attorney to suppress abolitionists. In 1833, Key caused a grand jury to indict the editor and the printer of an anti-slavery publication. In 1836, Key indicted a man for having a trunk full of anti-slavery pamphlets. He called it “seditious libel” that encouraged slave rebellion. Key, in his final address to the jury, said:
“Are you willing, gentlemen, to abandon your country, to permit it to be taken from you, and occupied by the abolitionist, according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the negro? Or, gentlemen, on the other hand, are there laws in this community to defend you from the immediate abolitionist, who would open upon you the floodgates of such extensive wickedness and mischief?”
The question is not why Colin Kaepernick sat down—the question is Why did any Blacks stand up?
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