“Negro equality, Fudge!! How long in the Government of a God great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagogueism [sic] as this?”[1] ~ Abraham Lincoln (the "Great Emancipator")
What Did Abraham Lincoln Believe About Racial Integration?
By Tom Carlyle, Jr.
The historical answer is not “politically correct.”
“There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races …A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas …’
“[Racial separation] must be effected by colonization. …The enterprise is a difficult one, …[but] ‘where there is a will there is a way,’ and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. 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, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.”[2]
In 1852 Lincoln opined:
“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 fatherland, 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.”[3]
Even as late as April 15, 1865, Lincoln stated to General Benjamin Franklin Butler:
“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, to the amount, I believe, of some one hundred and fifty thousand men. 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. …’
“Now, we shall have no use for our very large navy; what, then, are our difficulties in sending all the 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 guerilla war because we have taught these men how to fight. All the arms of the South are now in the hands of their troops, and when we capture them we of course will 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 give me any views that you have as to how to deal with the negro troops after the was. …’[T]he question of the colored troops troubles me exceedingly.”[4]
In 2011, the British newspaper Telegraph reported:
“Abraham Lincoln wanted to ship freed black slaves away from the US to British colonies in the Caribbean even in the final months of his life, it has emerged. A new book on the celebrated US president and hero of the anti-slavery movement, who was born 202 years ago on Saturday, argues that he went on supporting the highly controversial policy of colonisation.
“It was favoured by US politicians who did not believe free black people should live among white Americans, and had been backed by prominent abolitionists like Henry Clay as far back as 1816. Mr Lincoln also favoured the idea. But he was believed to have denounced it after signing the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed of most of America’s four million slaves, in January 1863. The notion that he came to regard it as unacceptable contributed to the legend of the 16th president, who is frequently voted America’s greatest, and is held by some to have left an impeccable record. Yet Phillip Magness and Sebastian Page, the authors of Colonisation After Emancipation, discovered documents in the National Archives in Kew and in the US that will significantly alter his legacy.
“They found an order from Mr Lincoln in June 1863 authorising a British colonial agent, John Hodge, to recruit freed slaves to be sent to colonies in what are now the countries of Guyana and Belize. ‘Hodge reported back to a British minister that Lincoln said it was his ‘honest desire’ that this emigration went ahead,’ said Mr Page, a historian at Oxford University. …’
“Mr Lincoln also considered sending freed slaves to what is now Panama, to construct a canal — decades before work began on the modern canal there in 1904. …’
“[A]s late as …’autumn [1864], a letter sent to the president by his attorney-general showed he was still actively exploring whether the policy could be implemented, Mr Page said. ‘It says ‘further to your question, yes, I think you can still pursue this policy of colonisation even though the money has been taken away’,’ he said.”[5]
Notes:
[1] Abraham Lincoln, marginalia on fragments of his speech notes, n.d., but ca. 1859; quoted by Roy P. Basler, ed., et al., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1953-1955, vol. 3, p. 399; cf. Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2008, vol. 1, p. 543.
[2] Abraham Lincoln, speech, Springfield, Ill., Jun. 26, 1857; quoted in Basler, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 405, 408, 409; cf. Robert Morgan, “The ‘Great Emancipator’ and the Issue of Race: Abraham Lincoln’s Program of Black Resettlement,” Journal of Historical Review, vol. 13, no. 5, Sept.-Oct., 1993, pp. 4-25, online at <http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n5p-4_Morgan.html>.
[3] Abraham Lincoln, eulogy for Henry Clay, Springfield, Ill., Jul., 1852; quoted by Basler, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 132; cf. Morgan, loc. cit.
[4] Abraham Lincoln; quoted by General Benjamin Franklin Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler: Butler’s Book, Boston, Mass.: A. M. Thayer, 1892, p. 903, online at <http://books.google.com/books?id=0LIBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA903>.
[5] Jon Swaine, “Abraham Lincoln ‘Wanted to Deport Slaves’ to New Colonies,” Telegraph, Feb., 11, 2011, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8319858/Abraham-Lincoln-wanted-to-deport-slaves-to-new-colonies.html>.
