Douglass believed, moreover, that this exodus did not conform to the "laws of civilizing migration," as the carrying of a language, literature and the like of a superior race to an inferior; and it did not conform to the geographic laws assuring healthy migration from east to west in the same latitude, as this was from south to north, far away from the climate in which the migrants were born.[17] The exodus of the Negroes, however, was heartily endorsed by Richard T.
Greener.

He did not consider it the best remedy for the lawlessness of the South but felt that it was a salutary one.

He did not expect the United States to give the oppressed blacks in the South the protection they needed, as there is no abstract limit to the right of a State to do anything.

He would not encourage the Negro to lead a wandering life but in that instance such advice was gratuitous.

Greener failed to find any analogy between African colonization and migration to the West as the former was promoted by slaveholders to remove the free Negro from the country and the other sprang spontaneously from the class considering itself aggrieved.