ALL RISE!
This afternoons lesson:
August 14, 1862- A Day Republicans Don't Talk About.
This is written by Dr. Henry Louis Gates. Gates is one of the preeminent historians on earth.
From: Did Lincoln Want to Ship Black People Back to Africa?
What little Union victory there was in Gen. Robert E. Lee’s withdrawal from Maryland gave Lincoln the opening he needed to issue the Confederacy his ultimatum: If it remained in a state of rebellion come Jan. 1, 1863, he would sign an executive order rendering “all” of its “slaves … then, thenceforward, and forever free.”
For any student of American history, this is well-trod ground. But here’s what you may not know about those crowded days of late summer 1862. While weighing emancipation, Lincoln also had a very different kind of ultimatum on his mind—for African Americans. For much of his first years in office, Lincoln was obsessed with solving America’s seemingly intractable race problem by persuading free blacks to lead the way for an exodus that would wash the United States of the original sin of slavery—without having to live alongside those it had enslaved.
To help sell his plan, the president had a meeting convened with local black leaders in Washington. It was billed to them as a policy conversation, but Lincoln wasn’t really eager to listen. He wanted to deliver a message about a mission, and they had been chosen to receive it.
Here’s how he addressed the free black delegation: “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 is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated.”
“I do not propose to discuss this, but to present it as a fact with which we have to deal,” Lincoln continued. “I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact, about which we all think and feel alike, I and you.”
Lincoln continued to unload on the delegates, even blaming their people for the Civil War at his doorstep: “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 war, although many men engaged 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.”
This brought the president back to colonization, and his purpose for inviting the delegates to the White House in the first place—to get them to accept his trial balloon.
“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,” Lincoln reasoned. “You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere in the United States the remainder of your life [as easily], 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.”
Then he pivoted: “But you ought to do something to help those who are not so fortunate as yourselves.”
In Lincoln’s mind, if these free leaders stepped forward to lead the emigration of black people out of the United States, that would make it easier for white slaveholders to free the rest.
After reviewing the pros and cons of Africa as a destination, Lincoln started pushing Central America as his destination of choice. After all, he said, Liberia was far from African Americans’ birthplace in the United States, and even if they weren’t all that fond of white people, he could understand wanting to be close to their forcibly adopted “motherland.
Then, after the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln surprised everyone by issuing his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. He also opened the door to the arming of black soldiers, a move he would formally ratify in the official Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863. Douglass’ sons Lewis and Charles enlisted. Events were moving so quickly that some, including Lincoln, sensed divine forces at play.
Yet even then, amazingly, Lincoln wasn’t through with his colonization obsession. In fact, if you read through the entire Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of 1862, you’ll find the president making provisions to compensate slaveholders for their losses and affirming “that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent, or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there, will be continued.”
In the aftermath, Foner writes, schemers for removing blacks from the country continued to approach Lincoln, and Lincoln continued to listen.”
Editor’s note: This article was originally published Sept. 22, 2014. For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to...
www.theroot.com
Lincoln wanted to relocate all the blacks. Blacks refused, so actually Lincoln was forced to sign the EP because blacks would not accept his proposal. This day, August 14th, 1862, is a day Republicans don't talk about. The reality is that Republicans of that time were no different than the Democrats and the party of Lincoln is the party of attempted forced resettlement and the Corwin Slavery Protection Amendment.
