19:06
2002-02-18
MARK FARRELL: LINCOLN'S GOALS OF
REPATRIATING BLACKS TO THEIR
MOTHERLAND
The Beginner’s American
History describes a trip that Lincoln made with a neighbor’s
son to New Orleans. Lincoln’s father gave Abe a warning, “Take
care that in trying to see the world you don’t see the bottom
of the Mississippi.”1 Lincoln’s father’s warning was well
founded. According to The Beginner’s American History, Lincoln
and his friend did experience some problems:
“The two
young men managed to get the boat through safely. But one
night a gang of negroes came on board, intending to rob them
of part of their cargo. Lincoln soon showed the robbers he
could handle a club as vigorously as he could an axe, and the
rascals, bruised and bleeding, were glad to get off with their
lives.”2
Perhaps, that incident led to Lincoln’s
opinions later in life. Although Lincoln felt that slavery was
an abomination—for no man, regardless of race, should ever be
forced into involuntary servitude—Lincoln never supported
integration, as some have claimed.3 It seems that many of the
strong positions that Lincoln held are rarely, if ever,
mentioned in today’s school history books. In perhaps an
effort to remain politically correct, Lincoln has been made
into something he never was: to use the word that was popular
in his time, an “amalgamationist”—that is, a person who
accepts interracial unions. Lincoln was only in favor of, said
Lincoln himself, “admitting all whites to the right of
suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means excluding
females.”4
Lincoln is perhaps best remembered for his
role in the Civil War, in which slavery was, without a doubt,
one of the important factors that led to it.5 But the
interracial problems and debates were waiting for Lincoln long
before he took office. The first major controversy began in
Missouri. When, in 1819, congress was deciding whether
Missouri should become a state, Congressman James Tallmadge
proposed an amendment that would have made it a “free
state”—one without slaves. His amendment caused acrimonious
feelings between northern and southern members of congress.
One southern congressman declared, “You have kindled a fire
which all the waters of the ocean cannot put out, which only
seas of blood can extinguish.”6 Although the House of
Representatives felt that slavery should be excluded from
Missouri, the Senate rejected it. Former President Thomas
Jefferson noticed with alarm that the issue of slavery was
causing a rift between the northern and southern states. “This
momentous question,” Jefferson wrote, “like a fire bell in the
night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at
once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the
moment, but this is a reprieve only.”7
A few decades
later, these problems greeted Lincoln, an ambitious yet poor
attorney who would become President of the United States.
Although Lincoln’s main concern was saving the Union, he was
vehemently against slavery. He once said, “If slavery is not
wrong, nothing is wrong.”8 Lincoln also said that he “always
hated slavery.”9 He suggested a “compensation emancipation,”
in which slave owners would be paid to free their slaves; but
they would not take his offer.10 He later issued a
proclamation in September of 1862 that stated: “All persons
held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a
state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against
the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever
free.”11 On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation
Proclamation, which named the states and parts of states in
which all slaves were ordered to be freed. And, two years and
one month later, on February 1, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment
was proposed, which stated, “Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude . . . shall exist within the United States, or any
place subject to their jurisdiction.”12
Unlike many
politicians of today who are fearful of breaking the
politically correct rules of being insensitive, Lincoln was
very open about his opinions, not caring whether others agreed
with him.13 He often said that his foremost goal was to
repatriate Blacks to a land of their own. Lincoln said that he
had hopes of sending “free negroes to Liberia.”14 In 1857,
Lincoln restated those same feelings of sending Blacks to
Liberia and said, “The enterprise is a difficult one . . .
[but] when there is a will there is a way.”15 At another time,
he made it pefectly clear what his intentions were. “What I
would most desire would be the separation of the white and
black races,” said Lincoln.16 In fact, the Emancipation
Proclamation said that “the effort to colonize persons of
African descent, with their consent, upon the continent or
elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the
government existing there, will be continued.”
In one
speech, Lincoln said that he did not know what to do with the
problems in America but stated that the first thing that came
to his mind was to help Blacks travel to Liberia. However, he
noted that that solution’s “sudden execution is impossible”
due to the slavery forces. Lincoln promulgated:
“If
all earthly power were given to me I should not know what to
do with the existing institution. My first impulse would be to
free all the slaves and then send them to Liberia, to their
native land. But, a moment’s reflection would convince me that
whatever of high hope, as I think there is, there may be in
this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible
[Lincoln’s emphasis].”17
Lincoln was diametrically
opposed to interracial relationships that resulted in
children, referred to as the “amalgamation” of races at his
time, from a personal perspective. On occasion, Lincoln said
that although he supported the notion to free Blacks, he did
not—in no uncertain terms—approve of miscegenation. On June
26, 1857, Lincoln said:
“Now I protest against the
counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want
a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a
wife. I need not have her for either. I can just let her
alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal; but in
her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own
hands, without asking leave of anyone else, she is my equal
and the equal of all others. . . . But Judge Douglas is
especially horrified at the thought of the mixing of blood by
the white and black races. . . . On this point we fully agree
with the Judge, and when he shall show that his policy is
better adapted to prevent amalgamation than ours, we shall
drop ours and adopt his. . . .”18
While debating with
Senator Stephen Douglas, Lincoln often repeated those same
feelings. Certainly, in today’s political context, Lincoln
would be more controversial than any White politician and even
more controversial than most Black politicians. Certainly, if
he were President today, many newspaper headlines would be
generated. Lincoln said:
“I will say that I am not,
nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the
social and political equality of the white and black races;
that I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes,
nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with
white people. . . . There is a physical difference between the
white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the
two races living together on terms of social and political
equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do
remain together there must be the position of superior and
inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having
the superior position assigned to the white race. . . . I do
not perceive that because the white man is to have the
superior position that the negro must be denied everything. I
do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for
a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My
understanding is that I can just let her alone. . . . I have
never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would
marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it; but as
Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension
that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I
give him my most solemn pledge that I will to the very last
stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of
white people with negroes. . . .
“I am not in favor of
negro citizenship. My opinion is that the different States
have the power to make a negro a citizen under the
Constitution if they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides
that they have not the power. If the State of Illinois had
that power I should be opposed to the exercise of it. That is
all I have to say about it.”19
Senator Douglas, during
his debates with Lincoln, would not commit himself to any
issue, like most politicians of today. He was hoping to please
everyone without actually doing anything. As for the slavery
issue, Douglas said, “I don’t care whether slavery be voted up
or voted down. . . . I don’t believe the negro is any kin of
mine at all.”20 Douglas’s nonpartisan view on slavery made him
unpopular for both the North and South. In that respect,
things have not really changed too much. The rich southern
plantation owners wanted slavery to remain for their financial
benefit, just like the internationalists of today try to bring
in cheap Third World labor for their businesses (or send their
businesses to Third World countries to get people to work for
a dime a day). The poor White southerner wanted slavery to end
so that he could get a decent-paying job, just like the poor
Whites of today have to compete against the Third World labor.
The Black slave wanted to rid himself of his shackles, just as
many poor Blacks today want to live in a land where they are
not used. The free Black wanted to see his fellow Blacks freed
of their chains because of a racial kinship. Many people in
the North and South wanted Blacks to be freed and repatriated,
as did Lincoln.
Although Lincoln was diametrically
opposed to the issue of slavery, he was obviously against the
integration that is now forced on all people. Instead, Lincoln
proposed complete and total separation by “colonizing people
of African descent.”21 Lincoln spoke to a committee of free
Blacks at the White House in the summer of 1862. The New-York
Tribune described Lincoln’s speech:
“Washington.
Thursday, [August] 14, 1862.[22] This afternoon the President
of the United States gave audience to a Committee of colored
men at the White House. They were introduced by Rev. J.
Mitchell, Commissioner of Emigration. E. M. Thomas, the
Chairman, remarked that they were there by invitation to hear
what the Executive had to say to them. Having all been seated,
the President, after a few preliminary observations, informed
them that a sum of money had been appropriated by Congress,
and placed at his disposition for the purpose of aiding the
colonization in some country of the people, or a portion of
them, of African descent, thereby making it his duty, as it
had [been] for a long time his inclination, to favor that
cause. . . .”
Clearly, what Lincoln said to the
committee of Blacks who attended was the most controversial
thing ever said by a President of the U.S. Lincoln suggested
that Blacks would be happier if they were not subjugated under
White rule. In a lengthy speech, he proposed that those Blacks
who so desired should colonize other lands, apart from that of
Whites. Lincoln promulgated:
“Why should the people of
your race be [colonized], and where?[23] Why should they leave
this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper
consideration. You and we are different races. We have between
us a broader difference than exists between almost any other
two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss,
but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us
both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them
by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a
word we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a
reason at least why we should be separated. You here are
freemen, I suppose.”24
A Black man who had attended
the convention responded by saying, “Yes, sir.”25 Lincoln
continued:
“Perhaps, you have long been free—or all
your lives. Your race are suffering, in my judgment, the
greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you
cease to be slaves, you are far removed from being placed on
an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of
the advantages which the other race enjoy. The aspiration of
men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this
. . . continent, not a single man of your race is made the
equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated the
best, and the ban is still upon you.
“I do not propose
to discuss this, but to present it as a fact with which we
have to deal. I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact,
about which we all think and feel alike, I and you. We look to
our condition, owing to the existence of the two races on this
continent. I need not recount to you the effects upon white
men, growing out of the institution of Slavery. . . . See our
present condition—the country engaged in war! our white men
cutting one another’s throats, none knowing how far it will
extend; and then consider what we know to be the truth. But
for your race among us there could not be a war, although many
men on either side do not care for you one way or the other.
Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of Slavery and
the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an
existence.
“It is better, therefore, to be separated.
I know that there are free men among you, who even if they
could better their condition are not as much in lined to go
out of the country as those who being slaves could obtain
their freedom on this condition. I suppose one of the
principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the
free colored man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced
by it. You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere
in the United States the remainder of your life, perhaps more
so than you can in any foreign country, and hence you may come
to the conclusion that you have nothing to do with the idea of
going to a foreign country. This is—I speak in no unkind
sense—an extremely selfish view of the case.
“But you
ought to do something to help those who are not so fortunate
as yourselves. There is an unwillingness on the part of our
people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to
remain with us. Now, if you could give a start to white
people, you would open a wide door for many to be free. If we
deal with those who are not free at the beginning, and whose
intellects are clouded by Slavery, we have very poor materials
to start with. If intelligent colored men, such as are before
me, would move in this matter, much might be accomplished. It
is exceedingly important that we have men at the beginning
capable of thinking as white men, and not those who have been
systematically oppressed.
“There is much to encourage
you. For the sake of your race, you should sacrifice something
of your present comfort for the purpose of being as grand in
that respect as the white people. It is a cheering thought
throughout life that something can be done to ameliorate the
condition of those who have been subject to the hard usage of
the world. It is difficult to make a man feel miserable while
he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God
who made him. In the American Revolutionary war sacrifices
were made by men engaged in it; but they were cheered by the
future. Gen. Washington himself endured greater hardships than
if he had remained a British subject. Yet he was a happy man,
because he was engaged in benefiting his race—something for
the children of his neighbors, having none of his own.
“The country of Liberia has been in existence a long
time. In a certain sense, it is a success. The old President
of Liberia, Roberts, has just been with me—the first time I
ever saw him. He says they have within the bounds of that
colony between 300,000 and 400,000 people, or more than in
some of our old States, such as Rhode Island or Delaware, or
in some of our newer States, and less than in some of our
larger ones. They are not all American colonists, or their
descendants. Something less than 12,000 have been sent thither
from this country. Many of the original settlers have died,
yet, like people elsewhere, their offspring outnumbers those
deceased.
“The question is if the colored people are
persuaded[Page image viewer] to go anywhere, why not there?
One reason for an unwillingness to do so is that some of you
would rather remain within reach of the country of your
nativity. I do not know how much attachment you may have
towards our race. It does not strike me that you have the
greatest reason to love them. But still you are attached to
them at all events.
“The place I am thinking about
having for a colony is in Central America. It is nearer to me
than Liberia—not much more than one-fourth as far as Liberia,
and within seven days run by steamers. Unlike Liberia it is on
a great line of travel—it is a highway. The country is a very
excellent one for any people, and with great natural resources
and advantages, and especially because of the similarity of
the climate with your native land—thus being suited to your
physical condition.
“The particular place I have in
view is to be a great highway from the Atlantic or [Caribbean]
Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and this particular place has all
the advantages for a colony. On both sides there are harbors
among the first in the world. Again, there is evidence of very
rich coal mines. A certain amount of coal is valuable in any
country, and there may be more than enough for the wants of
the country. Why I attach so much importance to coal is it
will afford an opportunity to the inhabitants for immediate
employment till they get ready to settle permanently in their
homes.
“If you take colonists where there is no good
landing, there is a bad show; and so where there is nothing to
cultivate and of which to make a farm. But if something is
started so that you can get your daily bread as soon as you
reach there, it is a great advantage. Coal land is the best
thing I know of which to commence an enterprise.
“To
return, you have been talked to upon this subject, and told
that a speculation is intended by gentlemen, who have an
interest in the country, including the coal mines. We have
been mistaken all our lives if we do not know whites as well
as blacks look to their self-interest. Unless among those
deficient of intellect everybody you trade with makes
something. You meet with these things here as elsewhere.
“If such persons have what will be an advantage to
them, the question is whether it cannot be made of advantage
to you. You are intelligent, and know that success does not
depend on external help as on self-reliance. Much, therefore,
depends upon yourselves. As to the coal mines, I think I see
the means available for your self-reliance. I shall, if I get
a sufficent number of you engaged, have provisions made that
you shall not be wronged. If you will engage in enterprise I
will spend some of the money intrusted to me. I am not sure
you will succeed. The Government may lose the money [if you do
not succeed], but we cannot succeed unless we try; but we
think, with care, we can succeed.
“The political
affairs in Central America are not in quite as satisfactory
condition as I wish. There are contending factions in that
quarter; but it is true all the factions are agreed alike on
the subject of colonization, and want it, and are more
generous than we are here. To your colored race they have no
objection. Besides, I would endeavor to have you made equals,
and have the best assurance that you should be the equals of
the best.
“The practical thing I want to ascertain is
whether I can get a number of able-bodied men, with their
wives and children, who are willing to go, when I present
evidence of encouragement and protection. Could I get a
hundred tolerably intelligent men, with their wives and
children, to ‘cut their own fodder,’ so to speak. Can I have
fifty? If I could find twenty-five able-bodied men, with a
mixture of women and children, good things in the family
relation, I think I could make a successful commencement.
“I want you to let me know whether this can be done or
not. This is the practical part of my wish to see you. These
are subjects of very great importance, worthy of a month’s
study, of a speech delivered in an hour. I ask you then to
consider seriously not pertaining to yourselves merely, nor
for your race, and ours, for the present time, but as one of
the things, if successfully managed, for the good of
mankind—not confined to the present generation but as
“From age to age descends the lay, To millions yet to
be, Till far its echoes roll away into eternity.”26
E.M. Thomas, the chairman of the delegation, responded
to Lincoln’s plea. He said that “they would hold a
consultation and in short order give an answer.”27 Lincoln
replied, “Take your full time—no hurry at all.”28 The area in
Central America in which Lincoln had hoped Blacks would
colonize was New Granada. However, Lincoln later found out
that Blacks would not be safe there, for there were many
problems with New Granada’s government that may have
endangered the lives of Blacks who would move there.29 Lincoln
decided against that plan, but he held steadfast to his idea
of repatriating Blacks to a land of their own.
Later,
Lincoln signed an act prohibiting Black slavery in the
District of Columbia. The U.S. government paid the former
owners of slaves up to—but not exceeding—$200 for each slave.
There was a provision in the bill that allowed any freed Black
to have a free ticket on a steamship to Haiti or Liberia if he
chose to go to either of those places.30
Lincoln asked
Congress to pass a bill that would recognize the nations Haiti
and Liberia. Congress did. However, the State Department said
that a Black man “could not be received as foreign
Minister.”31 The Haitian President, a Black man, was
appreciative of Lincoln recognizing Haiti as a nation and said
that, if it was Lincoln’s wish, he would not send a Black
Haitian minister. Lincoln made it known that it would not
bother him—although it was, at the time, prohibited by the
State Department—if a Black was sent. Lincoln replied, “You
can tell the President of Hayti [sic] that I shan’t tear my
shirt if he sends a Ni99er here!”32
Some have argued
that Lincoln “was unquestioningly moving toward a generous
civil-rights postion toward the end of his life.”33 Nothing
could be further from the truth. In fact, in early April of
1865, the very month that Lincoln was assassinated, Lincoln
still strongly held his plans of assisting Blacks in an effort
to maintain a land of their own, as noted by Major-General
Benjamin F. Butler in his lengthy autobiography, which is
known as Butler’s Book. During a conversation with Butler,
Lincoln described his intentions to help Blacks maintain a
land that they could call their own. Lincoln said:
“But what shall we do with the negroes after they are
free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live
in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes. Certainly they
cannot if we don’t get rid of the negroes whom we have armed
and disciplined and who have fought with us. . . . I believe
that it would be better to export them all to some fertile
country with a good climate, which they could have to
themselves.
“You have been a staunch friend of the
race from the time you first advised me to enlist them at New
Orleans. You have had a good deal of experience in moving
bodies of men by water—your movement up the James was a
magnificent one. Now, we shall have no use for our large navy;
what, then, are our difficulties in sending all blacks away?
“If these black soldiers of ours go back to the South
I am afraid that they will be but little better off with their
masters than they were before, and yet they will be free men.
I fear a race war, and it will be at least a guerrilla war
because we have taught these men how to fight. All the arms in
the South are now in the hands of their troops, and when we
capture them we will of course take their arms. There are
plenty of men in the North who will furnish the negroes with
arms if there is any oppression of them by their late masters.
“I wish you would carefully examine the question and
give me your views on it and go into the figures, as you did
before in some degree, so as to show whether the negroes can
be exported. I wish also you would give me any views that you
have as to how to deal with the negro troops after the war.
Some people think that we shall have trouble with our white
troops after they are disbanded. But I don’t anticipate
anything of that sort, for all the intelligent men among them
were good citizens or they would have not been good soldiers.
But the question of the colored troops troubles me
exceedingly. I wish you would do this as soon as you can,
because I am to go down to City Point shortly and may meet
negotiators for peace there, and I may want to talk this
matter over with General Grant if he isn’t too busy.”34
Several days later, Lincoln was assassinated by John
Wilkes Booth. Lincoln’s goal of assisting Blacks to regain
their destiny, separate from Whites, did not end with his
death, however.
1 D.H. Montgomery, The Beginner’s
American History (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1893), p. 203.
2 Montgomery, The Beginner’s American History, p. 203.
3 Recently, there has been a book published that
dispells the belief that only Blacks were slaves. Much like
Blacks during slavery, some Whites were sold for as little as
150 pounds of tobacco. In fact, the word “kidnapped” was
derived from the term “kid-nabbed,” which happened to many
White children in the British Isles who were used as slave
labor. Many of the White slaves died in passage. The Whites
who were slaves “found themselves powerless as individuals,
without honor or respect, and driven into commodity production
not by an inner sense of moral duty but by the outer stimulus
of the whip.” Michael Hoffman II, They Were White, and They
Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites
in Early America (Dresden, New York: Wiswell Ruffin House,
1991).
4 James Morgan, Abraham Lincoln: The Boy and
the Man (New York: Macmillan Company, 1908), p. 53.
5
There is no doubt that slavery was a problem of many that led
to the Civil War. But, it was not the sole problem. Although
Lincoln was against slavery, his main concern was to save the
Union—that is, to keep the U.S. united. Lincoln said, “If
there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could
at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. My
paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is
not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the
Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could
save it by freeing all slaves I would do it; and if I could
save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also
do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do
because I believe it helps to save the Union. . . .” Carl
Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1954), p. 316.
6 Smith Burnham and Theodore Jack, America Our Country
(Philadelphia: International Press, 1934), p. 331.
7
Burnham and Jack, America Our Country, p. 332.
8
Burnham and Jack, America Our Country, p. 375.
9
Burnham and Jack, America Our Country, p. 354.
10
Morgan, Abraham Lincoln, pp. 81, 320.
11 Burnham and
Jack, America Our Country , p. 376.
12 Burnham and
Jack, America Our Country, p. 377. In the 1850s, about
one-quarter of White southerners still had slaves. Ibid., p.
333.
13 Benjamin Cowen, who knew Lincoln, described
Lincoln’s openness: “He was a splendid example of a politician
of absolute intellectual honesty, indulging in no ambiguous
terms, making no mental reservations, but daring to think
freely and to speak and act openly.” Benjamin Cowen, Abraham
Lincoln: An Appreciation by One Who Knew Him (Cincinnati:
Robert Clark Co., 1909), pp. 18-19.
14 Joseph Newton,
Lincoln and Herndon (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press,
1910), p. 263.
15 Carleton Putnam, Race and Reality: A
Search for Solutions (Cape Canaveral, Florida: Howard Allen,
1967), p. 136
16 Putnam, Race and Reality, p. 135.
17 Joseph Newton, Lincoln and Herndon (Cedar Rapids,
Iowa: The Torch Press, 1910), pp. 65-66.
18 Newton,
Lincoln and Herndon, pp. 120-121.
19 Newton, Lincoln
and Herndon, p. 213. (Ellipses, except for the very last, are
Newton’s.) The following two books also have excerpts of the
aforementioned speech: James Morgan, Abraham Lincoln: The Boy
and the Man (New York: Macmillan Company, 1908), p. 131.
Putnam, Race and Reality, p. 134.
20 Morgan, Abraham
Lincoln, p. 130.
21 Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The
Prairie Years and the War Years, p. 316.
22 “The
Colonization of People of African Descent," New-York Tribune
(August 15, 1862), p. 1.
23 Typo corrected - said
"colored" rather than "colonized." See Sandburg, Abraham
Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, p. 316.
24 New-York Tribune (August 15, 1862), p. 1.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29 Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
and the War Years, p. 317.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Paul Boller, Jr., and John
George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes,
& Misleading Attributions (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1989), pp. 87-88.
34. Butler’s Book
(Boston: A. M. Thayer & Co. Book Publishers, 1892), p.
903.
Mark Farrell contributed this essay to
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