Source: Looking for Lincoln
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Download and ShareIn the decades up to and including the Civil War, many leading American statesmen felt that even if slavery were to be abolished, white and black populations would not and could not co-exist—as equals or otherwise. One widely proposed “solution” was the federal purchase of slaves and their resettlement, along with free blacks, to Africa, South America, or the Caribbean. Advocates for such a policy of “colonization” included Abraham Lincoln himself, who insisted in 1858 that racial separation
must be effected by colonization…Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime.
The moral argument for colonization was essentially an acknowledgement that the status quo of slavery was immoral, and must end; there was also a sentimental—if patronizing—appeal, as Lincoln put it, “in restoring a captive people to their long-lost fatherland.” The practical argument for colonization was that resettlement of blacks would in theory solve the post-emancipation dilemma of how to integrate a massive population of former slaves into an economy and society unprepared to welcome them as equals.
In 1861, the newly-elected President Lincoln secured congressional funding for the federal purchase of Washington D.C.’s approximately 3,000 slaves to be the first “colonists.” When Africa and Haiti were ultimately dismissed as suitable locations for resettlement (too far, and too Catholic, respectively) Lincoln focused on a proposal to establish a colony in the Chiquiri region of what is now Panama, where blacks would theoretically sustain their own settlement by mining and selling coal to the U.S. Navy.
Although Lincoln was able to secure the support of free black ministers (who in turn gathered 14,000 applications for emigration), opposition to colonization was strong among abolitionists, who insisted that blacks had a right to remain in the land of their birth. The recent Emancipation Proclamation had effectively elevated the purpose of the war to the ideological ideal that “all men are created equal,” and many felt that colonization would be a cynical betrayal of that principle. On a more practical level, certain politicians opposed colonization because they counted on the free black vote, or feared the economic impact of the loss of black laborers.
Ultimately, the Chiriqui project was abandoned in the face of emphatic protest by Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica, who objected to the use of their land as a depository for "a plague of which the United States desired to rid themselves." They declared their willingness to use force to repel what they would consider to be an invasion and an illegal violation of the United States’ own Monroe Doctrine, which guaranteed the sovereignty of all nations in the western hemisphere against colonization.
Gates: In Lincoln’s case, much of the most heated criticism that dogged him during the Civil War has been forgotten. Today, he basks in history’s glow: a moral giant. And nothing contributes more to his stature than his decision to free the slaves. Gates: But even this story is far more complicated than we’ve been taught. Blight: Well the traditional one might even say legendary narrative about Lincoln and the emancipation is that Abraham Lincoln one day freed the slaves and that all across the south slaves were gathered together and told about this proclamation and from that day forward they were free which is, of course, nonsense.
Gates: From the moment he took office, Lincoln was pressured from every side to act on the issue of slavery -- most notably by the former slave turned abolitionist and editor, the great Frederick Douglass.
Blight: Douglass was a ferocious critic of Abraham Lincoln. He was calling him everything from a “slave hound” to “the most powerful slave-catcher in the United States,” and so forth.
Blight: Douglass, was an essentially radical abolitionist. He hated compromising with slavery. He was impatient with the political process with slavery. And one of the reasons that Frederick Douglass became such an intense critic of Lincoln's in the first year of the war is because suddenly here was this opportunity. Here was this chance to end it, end the cause of the war and win the war by destroying slavery. And what happens, but the Lincoln administration returns fugitive slaves; does not want to make war on slavery.
Instead Lincoln proposed a compromise that he believed might appeal to Southerners and Northerners alike: pay off slave owners and ask the freed slaves to leave the country for new colonies in Panama or in Liberia
On August 14th 1862, Lincoln invited five prominent freed black men to the white house hoping to enlist their help for his plan.
Blight: One way of interpreting that famous, infamous meeting is that this was Lincoln using a moment to appeal to public opinion. Assuaging the fears of white racists out there.
Blight: I don't buy that. He had for too long believed in colonization, worked for colonization, He's still arguing it in 1862.
Blight: Well in the end, this war would not allow, history you could say, would not allow a cushioned overthrow of slavery. It was going to have to be bludgeoned out of existence.
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