You must be confused and have failed to track the conversation.
[x #501] responded to [nolu chan #419] which responded to [WhiskeyPapa #416]
In #416 Walt asserted that "The last time President Lincoln supported colonization was on 12/1/62. After that, he fell silent publicly. No private conversations show it either."
By my #419 I responded and documented a meeting of 5 Nov 1863 with the African Civilization Society, memorialized by James Mitchell as being about colonization. That is well after Walt's asserted cut-off date of 12/1/1862.
In his #501, x writes "According to your quotation, the African Civilization Society requested an interview with Lincoln. What was he to do? Turn them down?"
The question was not about whether Lincoln should or should not have met with them. I was showing that he met with them in a meeting about colonization after Walt's cut-off date for such things of 12/1/1862.
All of x's comments were irrelevant to the discussion about when Lincoln stopped talking about colonization.
x wrote that, "Leaders of the group, like Henry Highland Garnet and Martin Delany...."
After wasting my time trying to find out when Martin Delany had ever been a member or leader of the Garnet group, I finally decided that the available online information indicated that Delany had never been a member or leader of said group.
x wrote, "Delany's account of his own 1865 meeting with Lincoln makes no mention of colonization that I can see, an indication that Lincoln may well have left his interest in colonization behind."
Delany was in the Army and his meeting had nothing to do with colonization. It indicates nothing about whether Lincoln did, or did not, leave colonization behind. As Lincoln is revealed by Benjamin Butler to be pursuing colonization to his dying day, and Thomas Keneally writes that Dan Sickles was in South America pursuing colonization for Lincoln at the time of Lincoln's death, Lincoln not mentioning colonization in a metting which had nothing to do with colonization does not amount to much.
As for your belief that I was challenged to find support for my argument after Lincoln became president, you are in the wrong conversation. In any case, the discussed meetings of 12/1/1862, 11/5/1863, and 1865 all occurred significantly after Lincoln became president.
They charge you with wanting to freeze Lincoln pre-1860.
December 1, 1862 -- "But if gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted...."
Everybody but you thinks that the "greater evil" was disunion and war.
Quote your civil war era "everybody," if they exist. By emphasis Lincoln placed upon "at once" (Lincoln's italics), he makes his intent perfectly clear.
Flowing with and out of this was an even greater paradox. For Lincoln didn't believe, as we have seen, that slavery "could be at once eradicated, without producing a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty itself" (CW 2:130, Lincoln's italics.)
What an extraordinary thing to say! What could possibly be a greater evil to the cause of human liberty than slavery? Freeing all slaves at once, Lincoln, said, knocking down all the fences at once -- Lincoln's metaphor -- and producing the specter of racial mixing and racial conflict over jobs and other values.
Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory, pp. 268-9
Although Lincoln was a powerful figure in state politics for almost two decades, and although he spoke on many legislative subjects, he never uttered one word in favor of these men and move ments. On the contrary, he repeatedly criticized abolitionists who attacked slavery in the South and asked for a repeal of the Illinois Black Laws. Whitney said he abhorred abolitionists (317). Lamon said he was "the steady though quiet opponent" of abolitionists like Owen Lovejoy (210). Contemporary news reports say he "scathingly" attacked the abolitionists on the stump and went to great lengths to dissociate himself from their name and program (CW 2:14).During this period, Lincoln pressed his lifelong campaign against Black suffrage. It can be said, in fact, that he started and ended his political career supporting discrimination against Black voters. In January 1836, during his first term in the Illinois legislature, he voted, as we have indicated, to keep the franchise pure from Black contamination. Twenty-nine years later, he supported a Louisiana government which denied Blacks, including Black Union veterans, the right to vote. There is a direct line, straight as the columns on the Lincoln Memorial, from Lincoln's 1836 vote against Black suffrage to his last public speech, which endorsed invidious distinctions between Black and White voters.
Some investigators say the difference between the prairie Lincoln and the presidential Lincoln is so great that they seem to be dealing with two different men. They are dealing with two different men, comparing a mythical prairie Lincoln and a mythical presidential Lincoln. If they put the real Lincoln back into real history with real Negroes, real slaves and real abolitionists, Black and White, they will discover that the DNA of the prairie Lincoln and the DNA of the presidential Lincoln match perfectly. The Lincoln who voted against Black suffrage in the Illinois legislature is the same Lincoln who proposed invidious distinctions between Black and White voters in his last public speech. The Lincoln who called for the deportation of Blacks in 1852 is the same Lincoln who drafted a constitutional amendment for the deportation of Blacks in 1862. The Lincoln who said in 1852 that freeing all slaves immediately would create a greater evil than slavery is the same Lincoln who opposed immediate emancipation until his death and who wrote a Proclamation that freed few if any slaves.
The same language. The same acts. The same excuses. The same man.
The fight to ban Black voters was apparently a major Lincoln obsession, one he returned to repeatedly. Six months after he voted to keep tin suffrage pure and White, he opened his campaign for reelection to the legislature with a letter in favor of a lily-White suffrage:
New Salem, June 13,1836.
To the Editor of the Journal:
In your paper of last Saturday, I see a communication over the signature of "Many voters," in which the candidates who are announced in the Journal, are called upon to "show their hands." Agreed. Here's mine.
I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burthens. Consequently I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms, (by no means excluding females). (CW 1:48, italics added)
This was a backwards step, even for Whites, since the franchise was open then to all White males, whether they paid taxes or not. As for White females, Lincoln, as Donald and others have said, was probably making a joke since he and all his constituents knew that White women didn't pay taxes or bear arms.
Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory, pp. 192-3.
Reelected to the legislature, partly because of this racist appeal, Lincoln repeatedly voted for measures denying Blacks basic rights, according to Paul Simon, whose excellent Preparation for Greatness I am following here, with the understanding that it is not clear to me Lincoln, like Jefferson, kept the words and denied the slaves. Thus, the second major article of the Lincoln Doctrine was that slavery was so "complex" and involved racial problems so deep and explosive that it was insoluble in White terms. It was Jefferson, Lincoln noted approvingly, who said that the words of the Declaration of Independence were one thing but White "necessity" -- Lincoln's term -- was another. Did not the sainted Jefferson say of the Declaration and slaves: "We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go ..." (CW 2:128-9)? Which is, I suppose, good strategy if you are dealing with wolves instead of human beings.That distinction didn't deter Lincoln who agreed with Jefferson -- this was the third article of the Lincoln Doctrine -- that holding the wolf [slave] by the ears was better than letting him go at once. Lincoln was reminded that Clay "did not perceive, as I think no wise man has perceived, how it [slavery] could be at once eradicated, without producing a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty itself." To make sure there would be no mistake about his meaning, Lincoln himself underlined the words at once (CW 2:130).
Like all "wise" men who believed this, like Clay and Jefferson and Madison, and like all the "wise" men who believed it and were too wise to say it, Lincoln believed that freedom was worse than slavery. Someone will say that this is a shocking charge and that Lincoln only -- only -- believed that freedom for Blacks was worse than slavery. But freedom, like slavery, is indivisible; and a man who defines freedom by color and who believes that freeing four million people immediately is a greater evil than keeping four million people in slavery indefinitely believes freedom is worse than slavery, however he defines it and however his apologists defend it.
In any event, one thing is certain: Lincoln believed that freeing all slaves immediately by an Emancipation Proclamation or even a Thirteenth Amendment would produce a greater evil than the continuation of a nation half slave and half free.
Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory, pp. 220-1.
One great difficulty obstructed these efforts. Emancipation was easy, but the amalgamation of the white and black races was abhorrent, and their existence as equals, under the same Government, was for that reason impossible.Mr. Chairman, it is evident to every man of thought that the freed blacks hold a place in this country which cannot be maintained. Those who have fled to the North are most unwelcome visitors. The strong repugnance of the free white laborer to be yoked with the negro refugee breeds an enmity between races, which must end in the expulsion of the latter. Centuries could not reconcile the Spaniards to the Moors, and although the latter were the most useful people in Spain, their expulsion was the only way to peace. In spite of all that reason or religion can urge, nature has put a badge upon the African, making amalgamation revolting to our race.
The multiplication of slaves and freed men of the same caste in the section where the dominant race must become proportionally fewer from emigration, has already compelled the latter to prohibit emancipation within the States, and to seek means of deliverance from the free blacks. The northern States will not receive them; the southern States dare not retain them. What is to be done? What was done with the native population which it was found incompatible with the interests of Georgia and the States southwest of the Ohio, and the States northwest, to indulge with homes within their limits? The United States held it to be a national duty to purchase their lands from them, acquire homes for them in other regions, and to holdout inducements and provide the means for their removal to them.
The aboriginal or imported tribes which cannot amalgamate with our race, can never share in its Government in equal sovereignties.
I have already quoted the account of a late visitor and most acute observer, sent to report on the condition of that country. He confirms the general impression in regard to the effete state of the Spanish race in Honduras and the other Central American States; the insurrectionary disposition of the Indians and mestizos of mixed Indian and Spanish blood, which produces incessant civil war and revolution; and he shows that the African race constitutes the basis on which some energetic and intelligent Power must build a stable structure of free government. The negroes and mulattoes in Honduras number one hundred and forty thousand; the Indians one hundred thousand; the whites about fifty thousand; but of this caste he remarks, that -- "Indiscriminate amalgamation has nearly obliterated the former distinction of caste, and few families of pure Spanish descent are known."
Francis P. Blair, Jr., 1/14/1858 (excerpts)
Union general, brother of Lincoln cabinet member.
Republican congressman from Missouri,1st District, 1857-59, 1860, 1861-62, 1863-64; Senator from Missouri, 1871-1873.President Lincoln's Secretary John Hay recalled that one night in early December 1863, he, John Nicolay, and Secretary of the Interior John Usher were in the president's office discussing the Blairs when Mr. Lincoln came and observed: "The Blairs have to an unusual degree the spirit of clan. Their family is a close corporation. Frank is their hope and pride."
The social and civil evils resulting from the presence of the negro race are numerous, and their magnitude can be better discovered by the stranger than the victims of the calamity.Amongst them we rank first and most destructive to the purity and simplicity of society - which strikes deeper at the root of good order, and mines most effectually the foundations of that citadel of national stability, the family - the license of the races, which is giving to this continent a nation of bastards. No apology can be given for this; none will be received by the Great Ruler; he will punish for this with fearful severity. It should not be concealed from the authorities of the land, and the parties interested should not be permitted to disguise the criminal fact, that the most immoral maxims are retained amongst this people, and made the justification of crime in this regard - all predicated on the hope of the colored race to rise by the illicit absorption of their blood into the mass of this nation. Time and again has this hope been expressed in our hearing, and as often denounced as the source and cause of crime. That political economist must be blind indeed; that statesman must be a shallow thinker, who cannot see a fearful future before this country, if the production of this mixed race is not checked by removal.
James Mitchell, Lincoln's Commissioner of Emigration, May 18, 1862
Let the friend of English views, the disciple of Exeter hall, approach one of these western men and attempt to reason with him on the subject; he may tell him that it is not in keeping with the spirit of the age to exclude the African race from the rights and privileges of the Republic. He will answer that his social and civil structure was made for white men, not for black men; that he is opposed to social equality with the negro, and therefore opposed to the civil equality of such people with him, because social equality is a condition of society wherein each member, however dissimilar his circumstances in life to those of his neighbor, may attain by industry or fortune to that very social position which his neighbor holds; that this condition of social equality is predicated on civil or political equality, for there an be no social equality without it, such a supposition is absurd; that the government of his country is republican, and as such required a homogeneous population, and that republicanism is applicable to such and such alone - a people in which each man is essentially the equal of his neighbor; that by a homogeneous population he means no this color or that color, but a population that can and will amalgamate on legal and honorable terms; that he does not choose to regard the negro as his equal, and if disposed to regard him as his equal in mind and worth, he does not choose to endanger the blood of his posterity by the proximity of such a population; that here is no command in the Word of God that will oblige him to place this race on the high road to such an amalgamation with his family; and if not with his family, not with that mass of families he calls a State. He will say that a family, and that collection of families which constitute his State, have the right, beyond all organic law, to say who shall or who shall not be received into their bosom and made members of their society; that the American people, in the exercise of this right, have admitted the white races, because they could amalgamate such on legal and honorable terms, whilst they rejected the black because they could not or would not amalgamate on legal or honorable terms. He will point to the recorded opinion of the Supreme tribunal of the nation as to citizenship. He will tell you that he is a sovereign on the soil he treads, and as such has as good a right to protect the purity of his blood in future ages as has the sovereign of England, and to enact laws thereto. Nothing but the authority of the Divine law will change his purpose to hedge himself in and erect legal protections against this possible admixture of blood, which he sees endangers the peace of society more than the intermarriage of England's royal heir with plebeian line.The student of Exeter Hall may then, with self complacency, point toe corruption of blood where slavery is cherished. And what has he accomplished by that? He rouses the pride of his antagonist, causing him to hate slavery all the more, and we much mistake his character if he does not answer with the emphasis of indignation. Where men are truly moral and religious, the white and black races do not mix, so that the influence of religion will never effect fusion, or destroy the right of choice in the parties. All attempts to destroy this right of choice for himself or his family he will regard as an aggression, and repel with feeling, which if provoked by constant irritation and factious opposition to his local interests, can summon armed aid. Hence I have said we are destined to see other wars in the conflict of races, unless wisdom becomes our guide.
I trust my fears in this regard are not well grounded; but let the stranger go amongst the people of the West and South, as I have done, and propose any other plan of meliorating the unfortunate condition of the free man of color than that of removal to an independent home, and the mass of the people will regard him with more than jealously. What is it gives the hate and ranchor, the venom and the ire to this wicked rebellion amongst the poorer classes of the South? It is love for the negro? No, but it is the hatred of those who would engraft, as they say, negro blood on the population of their country.
James Mitchell, Lincoln's Commissioner of Emigration, May 18, 1862