Lincoln and Colonization: Policy or Propaganda?

https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Colonization-Society

The west coast African country Liberia was colonized I believe in 1816 by black people from the American Colonization Society. The United States on Feb 5, 1862 recognized the country of Liberia. The flag of Liberia is similar to the United states flag in that it is red, white, and blue, has stripes, and bears a single star. Many People in Liberia share heritage with people in the United States. Lincoln's idea of colonization was not unique in its thinking, but he was following up on events that had occurred decades before his presidency.

Below is an image of Liberia's flag:

flag.jpg
 
Last edited:
View attachment 35695

In his Second Annual Message to Congress Dec. 1, 1862, Lincoln proposed establishing a colony for the slaves. Was he really serious and want African-Americans to leave the country, or was it a smokescreen, propaganda you might say to further the cause of equality? "Every time [Lincoln] contemplated some new antislavery move," says Stephen Oates, "he made a great fuss about colonization." But he and his party knew that colonization was a logistical impossibility. As one Republican politician wrote privately, "Colonization is a ****ed humbug but it will take with the people." Which do you feel more accurately represents Lincoln's true feelings: him advocating colonization and honestly believing in it, or that he didn't really support colonization but used it to take the pressure off his egalitarian goals and policy?
If the idea of expanding slavery plantations into South America by victorious Confederate's after the war was possible, then why wasn't colonization of freed black people outside the United States after the war an impossibility?
 
Lincoln’s early plans involved Northern Free Blacks....Northerners with a 2% Black Population, wanted them gone...should tell us something....negotiating with, most prominent the Brits...They wanted the strongest, field hand ready of the lot...Most of the Negro population would not of made good candidates for Colonization...The Brits didn’t want the X Slaves...embarrassing if the South had ended up winning the War!

What a long complex spin. We call you on it. Lincoln's early plans with re-colonization did not only involve "Northern Free Blacks." And "Northerners" as a class didn't have one opinion about anything, let alone wanting blacks "gone" (whatever that was supposed to imply).*

Just read history. Lincoln, for much of his early career, believed that the African-American population -- not just Northern blacks -- might better (for them) leave the United States and settle in Africa or Central America. He felt that was the best way to confront the problem of slavery; by which he certainly meant Southern blacks (slaves). Lincoln first publicly advocated for colonization in 1852 -- well before South was separated from North -- so of course he was advocating on behalf of the whole nation at that point; not just the North. In 1854 Lincoln said that his first instinct would be “to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,” by which he certainly meant Southern blacks (slaves) as well.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* and furthermore, not every conversation in this forum need be reduced to defending secession and the Confederacy. Every real Confederate is long-since dead, and any that survived the war were left in the condition of having been soundly defeated at the hands of the army that had more popular support at the time. We just can't help it that Lincoln's thoughts on re-colonization can't be spun to support the ideology of the Lost Cause.
 
Last edited:
View attachment 35695

In his Second Annual Message to Congress Dec. 1, 1862, Lincoln proposed establishing a colony for the slaves. Was he really serious and want African-Americans to leave the country, or was it a smokescreen, propaganda you might say to further the cause of equality? "Every time [Lincoln] contemplated some new antislavery move," says Stephen Oates, "he made a great fuss about colonization." But he and his party knew that colonization was a logistical impossibility. As one Republican politician wrote privately, "Colonization is a ****ed humbug but it will take with the people." Which do you feel more accurately represents Lincoln's true feelings: him advocating colonization and honestly believing in it, or that he didn't really support colonization but used it to take the pressure off his egalitarian goals and policy?


Lincoln was a colonizer. He believed in the tradition of Madison, Jefferson, Monroe, and most significantly to Lincoln, Henry Clay, who believed that blacks shouldn’t be slaves as it violated their natural rights, but that whites and blacks couldn’t live together in this country in peace, due to the justifiable animosity the blacks would feel against the whites for their wicked treatment. The colony where they would be liberated would become known as Liberia, and its capital was named Monrovia, after James Monroe.


See Lincoln’s speech below.

“If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land, with bright prospects for the future; and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation.”
--July 6, 1852 Eulogy on Henry Clay

Perhaps the biggest reason I prefer Madison to Jefferson is because Madison was temporarily the president of this important historical organization and worked for its success.

http://personal.denison.edu/~waite/liberia/history/acs.ht
 
Last edited:
"Mismanagement, corruption and administrative hurdles made Lincoln’s colonization project implausible. Lincoln abandoned the idea of colonization sometime in 1864 because he realized that it was an impractical plan and that the country would benefit from them joining the Union forces. African Americans joining the ranks of the U.S. Army and Navy during the Civil War persuaded Lincoln that these men were willing to fight for their freedom and that of the Union if only given the chance. His colonization plan would have never worked as freedmen did not consider Africa their homeland, they were born and raised in America."

http://www.abraham-lincoln-history.org/colonization/
 
This rubbish flies in the face of actual facts. The Lincoln administration negotiated with American Bernard Krock who as a businessman representing his company, negotiated with the Haitian government for a settlement on Ile a Vache (Cow Island). This was the Lincoln administration's only attempt to implement voluntary colonization which had no prerequisites for the emigrees other than the fact that they were free Blacks who voluntarily chose to leave. The program was a disaster with Krock taking the money and leaving the new immigrants to fend for themselves in spite of the promises of work and housing he had made to them. If you have sources that state differently, please provide them. Lincoln sent the Navy to pick up those who wanted to return to the United States.
Uh, uh, do you have a source, or is this just a Krock? :help:
 
"Was he really serious and want African-Americans to leave the country, or was it a smokescreen, propaganda you might say to further the cause of equality?"

Neither.

He did at various times (including as president) seriously consider various colonization schemes. Lincoln's support for colonization waxed and waned, and is best seen in the context of his seeking any and every solution to the practical questions of slavery and emancipation. Colonization had lots of adherents and advocates, and actual colonization projects (moving real people on real ships) went on on a small scale both before Lincoln and long after.

Two things are important to remember about Lincoln and colonization. First, he did not support compulsory colonization (i.e., forcing freedmen to go), but as a voluntary option. Second, he long believed that African Americans and whites would have grave difficulty co-existing side-by-side on the same legal footing, and saw voluntary colonization as a sort of "safety valve" that would both give freedmen autonomy and opportunity, and alleviate the racial animus that he was certain would come in the wake of universal emancipation.
Was Lincoln's decision affected by the service of the Blacks in the latter days of the war when they had sacrificed thousands of men for their freedom and then in his relations with Fredrick Douglas? By the latter days of the war ,on the political side,there was a more demanding freedom for the slaves,esp. by soldiers who had witnessed the real truth of slavery and of the system.Lincoln,as a politician,knew that the Radicals would demand total end of the system with the end of the war.Lincoln also had the concern that his Proclamation may be repelled and when the war ended.The blacks were not about to depart this country esp.with so many having served.Then there is the financial budget that would be required if you could find a country which would accept the population of these free people.The Moral issue of colonization is prehabs the one that Lincoln delete with,how can he say what he has spoken concerning the rights of men and then deny them the right as any other person has? Question; did Steward use any diplomatic appeals to any country to take even a quarter of these former slaves and was this only about the former slaves or did this include free blacks?
 
Was Lincoln's decision affected by the service of the Blacks in the latter days of the war when they had sacrificed thousands of men for their freedom and then in his relations with Fredrick Douglass?

Absolutely. Yes, yes, and yes. Also, yes.

Lincoln and Douglass met three times -- once, initially, when Douglass urged Lincoln to bring African American troops into the U.S. Army, which eventually Lincoln did but only well after the Emancipation proclamation; a second time in 1864 when Lincoln feared he was going to lose the election in November and he urged Douglass to do what he could to get "contrabands" into U.S. lines before his successor would presumably negotiate a quick truce, and last, in March 1865, when Douglass was ushered in and out of the inaugural ball at the White House to pay his respects to the President.

Neither man trusted each other initially, but over four years they began each to understand that the other was going to be critical in obtaining their shared goals. The grew to respect each other, but it didn't come easily for either man. This is what Douglass wrote about Lincoln's election in December 1860, when he began to despair of achieving full abolition across the United States:

Nevertheless, this very [electoral] victory [of the Republicans] threatens and may be the death of the modern Abolition movement, and finally bring back the country to the same, or a worse state, than Benj. Lundy and Wm. Lloyd Garrison found it thirty years ago. The Republican party does not propose to abolish slavery anywhere, and is decidedly opposed to Abolition agitation. It is not even, by the confession of its President elect, in favor of the repeal of that thrice-accursed and flagrantly unconstitutional Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850. It is plain to see, that once in power, the policy of the party will be only to seem a little less yielding to the demands of slavery than the Democratic or Fusion party, and thus render ineffective and pointless the whole Abolition movement of the North. The safety of our movement will be found only by a return to all the agencies and appliances, such as writing, publishing, organizing, lecturing, holding meetings, with the earnest aim not to prevent the extension of slavery, but to abolish the system altogether.
Remember also that in the last speech Lincoln ever gave, to a crowd on the White House lawn after the news of Lee's surrender at Appomattox arrived, Lincoln called for extending the voting franchise to those African Americans who were "very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers." That was a radical position for mainstream politics at the time.
 
Last edited:
Absolutely. Yes, yes, and yes. Also, yes.

Lincoln and Douglass met three times -- once, initially, when Douglass urged Lincoln to bring African American troops into the U.S. Army, which eventually Lincoln did but only well after the Emancipation proclamation; a second time in 1864 when Lincoln feared he was going to lose the election in November and he urged Douglass to do what he could to get "contrabands" into U.S. lines before his successor would presumably negotiate a quick truce, and last, in March 1865, when Douglass was ushered in and out of the inaugural ball at the White House to pay his respects to the President.

Neither man trusted each other initially, but over four years they began each to understand that the other was going to be critical in obtaining their shared goals. The grew to respect each other, but it didn't come easily for either man. This is what Douglass wrote about Lincoln's election in December 1860, when he began to despair of achieving full abolition across the United States:

Nevertheless, this very [electoral] victory [of the Republicans] threatens and may be the death of the modern Abolition movement, and finally bring back the country to the same, or a worse state, than Benj. Lundy and Wm. Lloyd Garrison found it thirty years ago. The Republican party does not propose to abolish slavery anywhere, and is decidedly opposed to Abolition agitation. It is not even, by the confession of its President elect, in favor of the repeal of that thrice-accursed and flagrantly unconstitutional Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850. It is plain to see, that once in power, the policy of the party will be only to seem a little less yielding to the demands of slavery than the Democratic or Fusion party, and thus render ineffective and pointless the whole Abolition movement of the North. The safety of our movement will be found only by a return to all the agencies and appliances, such as writing, publishing, organizing, lecturing, holding meetings, with the earnest aim not to prevent the extension of slavery, but to abolish the system altogether.
Remember also that in the last speech Lincoln ever gave, to a crowd on the White House lawn after the news of Lee's surrender at Appomattox arrived, Lincoln called for extending the voting franchise to those African Americans who were "very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers." That was a radical position for mainstream politics at the time.
“Very intelligent”? I wonder who would be the ones to determine that? Lincoln still does not believe in the word, “Equal”.
 
What a long complex spin. We call you on it. Lincoln's early plans with re-colonization did not only involve "Northern Free Blacks." And "Northerners" as a class didn't have one opinion about anything, let alone wanting blacks "gone" (whatever that was supposed to imply).*

Just read history. Lincoln, for much of his early career, believed that the African-American population -- not just Northern blacks -- might better (for them) leave the United States and settle in Africa or Central America. He felt that was the best way to confront the problem of slavery; by which he certainly meant Southern blacks (slaves). Lincoln first publicly advocated for colonization in 1852 -- well before South was separated from North -- so of course he was advocating on behalf of the whole nation at that point; not just the North. In 1854 Lincoln said that his first instinct would be “to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,” by which he certainly meant Southern blacks (slaves) as well.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* and furthermore, not every conversation in this forum need be reduced to defending secession and the Confederacy. Every real Confederate is long-since dead, and any that survived the war were left in the condition of having been soundly defeated at the hands of the army that had more popular support at the time. We just can't help it that Lincoln's thoughts on re-colonization can't be spun to support the ideology of the Lost Cause.

You are right to a point. Mainly, he didn't want to mix whites and blacks.
 
If the idea of expanding slavery plantations into South America by victorious Confederate's after the war was possible, then why wasn't colonization of freed black people outside the United States after the war an impossibility?

Their were 4 million of them. Overwhelming majority, didn’t want to go. Any such program, would of ended up removing the strongest and leaving the weakest. The South needed the Labor.

So, the Federal Government did the next best thing. Banned the Chinese and reaffirmed White in our Immigration Laws
 
This rubbish flies in the face of actual facts. The Lincoln administration negotiated with American Bernard Krock who as a businessman representing his company, negotiated with the Haitian government for a settlement on Ile a Vache (Cow Island). This was the Lincoln administration's only attempt to implement voluntary colonization which had no prerequisites for the emigrees other than the fact that they were free Blacks who voluntarily chose to leave. The program was a disaster with Krock taking the money and leaving the new immigrants to fend for themselves in spite of the promises of work and housing he had made to them. If you have sources that state differently, please provide them. Lincoln sent the Navy to pick up those who wanted to return to the United States.

Historians have tended rather too much to let the cart of "eqalitarianism" and other abstract concepts pull the horse of realistic perspective in attempting to comprehend the rage and sophistication of human thinking. Lincoln always showed a great propensity of juggling options. He issued a message calling for a gradual, constitutional, and compensated end to slavery--one which we now know to have been much more sincere than is normally accepted--a month shy of his proclamation of immediate freedom for the majority of American slaves. As to specific colonization plans, for a time in later 1862 and early 1863, he was interested in no fewer than three schemes--Chiriqui, lle a Vache, and the British option--simultaneously, though he put work into one than the others at different points. pp126-127 Colonization after Emancipation by Phillip W. Magness

Lincoln also talked to the Dutch and others. We will excuse you for your Lack Of Understanding.
 
But did Lincoln continue with colonization throughout his administration?

I mean, after all, we have him issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, working to pass the 13th Amendment, and finally giving a speech to support black voting rights.

Doesn't the above give indication of change, of a new direction in his thoughts and actions? Why the rush to freeze the man in one moment of time when all subsequent actions speak of something else?
 
So, the Federal Government did the next best thing. Banned the Chinese and reaffirmed White in our Immigration Laws

The "Federal Government" did that eh? Like a King. Votes or representation had nothing to do with it. It wasn't that the American people "allowed" those things to happen but that the Federal Government ("Snidely Whiplash") forced those things to happen, eh? Sure absolves us of any blame, eh?
 
Last edited:
Absolutely. Yes, yes, and yes. Also, yes.

Lincoln and Douglass met three times -- once, initially, when Douglass urged Lincoln to bring African American troops into the U.S. Army, which eventually Lincoln did but only well after the Emancipation proclamation; a second time in 1864 when Lincoln feared he was going to lose the election in November and he urged Douglass to do what he could to get "contrabands" into U.S. lines before his successor would presumably negotiate a quick truce, and last, in March 1865, when Douglass was ushered in and out of the inaugural ball at the White House to pay his respects to the President.

Neither man trusted each other initially, but over four years they began each to understand that the other was going to be critical in obtaining their shared goals. The grew to respect each other, but it didn't come easily for either man. This is what Douglass wrote about Lincoln's election in December 1860, when he began to despair of achieving full abolition across the United States:

Nevertheless, this very [electoral] victory [of the Republicans] threatens and may be the death of the modern Abolition movement, and finally bring back the country to the same, or a worse state, than Benj. Lundy and Wm. Lloyd Garrison found it thirty years ago. The Republican party does not propose to abolish slavery anywhere, and is decidedly opposed to Abolition agitation. It is not even, by the confession of its President elect, in favor of the repeal of that thrice-accursed and flagrantly unconstitutional Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850. It is plain to see, that once in power, the policy of the party will be only to seem a little less yielding to the demands of slavery than the Democratic or Fusion party, and thus render ineffective and pointless the whole Abolition movement of the North. The safety of our movement will be found only by a return to all the agencies and appliances, such as writing, publishing, organizing, lecturing, holding meetings, with the earnest aim not to prevent the extension of slavery, but to abolish the system altogether.
Remember also that in the last speech Lincoln ever gave, to a crowd on the White House lawn after the news of Lee's surrender at Appomattox arrived, Lincoln called for extending the voting franchise to those African Americans who were "very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers." That was a radical position for mainstream politics at the time.
Was Lincoln becoming more Radical in his last year or was he he finally able to express his true self after so many years of being the politician ? Then the question is why Johnson as VP.like Roosevelt with Truman?
 
Was Lincoln becoming more Radical in his last year or was he he finally able to express his true self after so many years of being the politician ?

To borrow a term that's much-ridiculed in modern politics, he evolved in his views, based on his experiences and observations. The soldiering done by USCTs definitely played a big role in that, as it should have. I do also think it's fair to say that, having all-but-completely defeated the Confederacy, he felt he had the political capital to push for things that he wouldn't have been able to previously (see also, Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation).
 
Last edited:
Back
Top