It wasn’t an original idea by 1860. But it was utterly impractical on a wide scale. There were simply too many and other than for those who were removed from their tribal homelands within their lifetime, Blacks were already too Americanized and alien to Africa. The ones who did return to Liberia remained culturally divided from the natives and neither fully assimilated into the other even to this day.
Frederick Douglass imparted to Lincoln regarding this notion of repatriation and disavowed him of it citing some of what I stated above. The time to have done it was 100 years beforehand (1750/60) when the numbers were still low, but too many were addicted to the notion of cheap labor. Same with the importation of today’s de facto slaves: illegals. They couldn’t care less about the long term problems that results from their importation and not being able to fully assimilate.
They couldn’t care less about the long term problems that results from their importation and not being able to fully assimilate.
quite simply put, bingo...
The country was unnaturalized.