AndyHall
Colonel
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2011
I happened upon this item from just the fourth issue of William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist paper, The Liberator, from January 22, 1831:
Formerly, the purchase of Texas by our Government, for the purpose of bestowing it as a gift upon our colored population, was a favorite opinion of ours; but we have settled down into the belief, that the object is neither practicable nor expedient. In the first place, it is not probable that the Congress would make the purchase; nor, secondly, is it likely that the mass of our colored people would remove without some compulsory process; nor, thirdly, would it be safe or convenient to organise them as a distinct nation among us,—an imperium in imperio. The fact is, it is time to repudiate all colonization schemes, as visionary and unprofitable; all those, we mean, which have for their design the entire separation of the blacks from the whites. We must take our free colored and slave inhabitants as we find them—recognise them as countrymen who have extraordinary claims upon our charities—give them the advantages of education—respect them as members of one great family, who may be made useful in society and honorable in reputation. This is our view of the subject.
Garrison is writing here five years before the Alamo and the Texas Revolution, and thirty years before secession and Sumter.
Notice also that for Garrison, using a "compulsory process" of colonization of African Americans, free or (formerly) enslaved, was a deal-breaker. Like Lincoln, whose interest in colonization schemes waffled back and forth over the years, before finally being rejected completely, it was always a matter of voluntary resettlement rather than expulsion.
From the online collection at Fair-Use.org, that includes what looks to be the entire 35-year run of The Liberator. Check it out.
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Garrison portrait via National Portrait Gallery.
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