to this recommendation in separate acts, providing in an act, April 16, 1862, for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia, including those to be liberated by this act, as may desire to emigrate to the Republic of Hayti or Liberia, or such other country beyond the limits of the United States, as the President may determine, provided the expenditure does not exceed one hundred dollars for each immigrant.10 The act provided that the sum of $100,000 out of any money in the Treasury should be expended under the direction of the President to aid the colonization and settlement of such persons of African descent now residing in the District of Columbia.11 It further provided that later, on July 16, an additional appropriation of $500,000 should be used in securing the colonization of free persons.12 A resolution directly authorizing the President's participation provided "that the President is hereby authorized to make provision for the transportation, colonization and settlement in some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States, of such persons of the African race, made free by the provisions of this act, as may be willing to emigrate, having first obtained the consent of the government of said country to their protection and settlement within the same, with all the rights and privileges of freemen."13 The consent of Congress was given under protest and opposition from some individual members. Charles Sumner in and out of Congress attacked the plan with vigor,14 but in spite of this opposition the recommendation was carried.
On several occasions Lincoln seized the opportunity to present his views and plans to visiting groups and committees. On July 16, 1862, when the President was desirous of securing the interest of the border State representatives in favor of compensated emancipation the plan for colonization came to light. His appeal to these representatives was: "I do not speak of emancipation at once but of a decision to emancipate gradually. Room in South America for colonization can be obtained cheaply and in abundance, and when numbers shall be large enough to be company and encouragement to one another the freed people will not be so reluctant to go."15
Again on the afternoon of August 14, 1862, the President gave an audience to a committee of men of color at the White House. They were introduced by Rev. J. Mitchell, Commissioner of Emigration. E. M. Thomas, the chairman, remarked that they were there by invitation to hear what the executive had to say to them. Having all been seated the President informed them that a sum of money had been appropriated by Congress and placed at his disposal for the purpose of aiding colonization in some country, of the people, or a portion of those of African descent, thereby making it his duty as it had been for a long time his inclination to favor that cause. "And why," he asked, "should the people of your race be colonized and where? Why should they leave this country? 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 why we should be separated. If we deal with those who are not free at the beginning and whose intellects are clouded by slavery we have very poor material to start with. If intelligent colored men, such as are before me, would move in this matter much might be accomplished. It is exceedingly important that we have men at the beginning capable of thinking as white men and not those who have been systematically opposed."
The place the President proposed at this time was a colony in Central America, seven days' run from one of the important Atlantic ports by steamer. He stated that there was great evidence of rich coal mines, excellent harbors, and that the new colony was situated on the highways from the Atlantic or Caribbean to the Pacific Oceans. He told this delegation of men to take their full time in making a reply to him. The delegation withdrew, and we are unable to discover any information regarding the reply. Evidently the group of men never returned to make reply to the appeal of the President.16
In the Second Annual Message December 1, 1862, more practical suggestions were made to Congress by the President. Says he: "Applications have been made to me by many free Americans of African descent to favor their emigration, with a view to such colonization as was contemplated in recent acts of Congress. Other parties at home and abroad—some upon interested motives, others upon patriotic considerations, and still others influenced by philanthropic sentiments have suggested similar measures; while on the other hand several of the Spanish American Republics have protested against the sending of such colonies to their respective territories. Under these circumstances I have declined to move any such colony to any State without first obtaining the consent of the government, with an agreement on its part to receive and protect such emigrants in all the rights of freemen. I have at the same time offered to several States situated within the tropics, or having colonies there to negotiate with them, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate, to favor the voluntary emigration of persons of that class to their respective territories upon conditions which shall be equal, just and humane. Liberia and Hayti are as yet the only countries to which colonies of African descent from here could go with certainty of being received and adopted as citizens; and I regret to say such persons contemplating colonization do not seem so willing to go to those countries as to some others, nor so willing as I think their interest demands. I believe, however, opinion among them in this respect is improving; and that ere long there will be an augmented and considerable migration to both countries from the United States."
Later in the same message Congress is requested to appropriate money and prepare otherwise for colonizing free colored persons with their own consent at some place without the United States. The President continues: "I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization and yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against free colored persons remaining in the country, which is largely imaginary, if not sometimes malicious. It is insisted that their presence would injure and displace white labor and white laborers. Is it true then that colored people can displace any more white labor by being free than by remaining slaves? If they stay in their old places they jostle no white laborers; if they leave their old places they leave them open to white laborers. Logically then there is neither more nor less of it. Emancipation even without deportation would probably enhance the wages of white labor and very surely would not reduce them. Reduce the supply of black labor by colonizing the black laborer out of the country and by precisely so much you increase the demand for and wages of white labor."17
Pursuant to the power given the President, negotiations were begun with the foreign powers having territory or colonies within the tropics, through the Secretary of State, W. H. Seward, mainly to ascertain if there was any desire on the part of these governments for entering into negotiation on the subject of colonization. Negotiations were to be begun only with those powers which might desire the benefit of such emigration. It was suggested that a ten years' treaty should be signed between the United States and the countries desiring immigration. The latter were required to give specific guarantees for "the perpetual freedom, protection and equal rights of the colonies and their descendants." Before and after the transmission of the proposals to foreign countries, propositions came from the Danish Island of St. Croix in the West Indies, the Netherland Colony of St. Swinam, the British Colony of Guiana, the British Colony of Honduras, the Republic of Hayti, the Republic of Liberia, New Granada and Ecuador. The Republics of Central America, Guatemala, Salvador, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, objected to such emigration as undesirable.18
Great Britain rejected the proposal as a governmental proposition on the ground that it might involve the government in some difficulty with the United States government because of fugitives, and therefore expressed her disagreement with such a convention. Seward had asserted that there was no objection to voluntary emigration; the government of British Honduras and Guiana then appointed immigration agents who were to promote the immigration of laborers by using Boston, New
Section XI of Act approved April 16, 1862.
Nicolay and Hay,
Raymond,
Nicolay and Hay,
Charles Sumner in a speech before a State Committee in Massachusetts, said: "A voice from the west—God save the west—revives the exploded theory of colonization, perhaps to divert attention from the great question of equal rights. To that voice, I reply, first, you ought not to do it, and secondly, you cannot do it. You ought not to do it, because besides its intrinsic and fatal injustice, you will deprive the country of what it most needs, which is labor. Those freedmen on the spot are better than mineral wealth. Each is a mine, out of which riches can be drawn, provided you let him share the product, and through him that general industry will be established which is better than anything but virtue, and is, indeed, a form of virtue. It is vain to say that this is a white man's country. It is the country of man. Whoever disowns any member of the human family as brother disowns God as father, and thus becomes impious as well as inhuman. It is the glory of republican institutions that they give practical form to this irresistible principle. If anybody is to be sent away, let it be the guilty and not the innocent."—
Nicolay and Hay,
Raymond,
Richardson,
[18] A section of the emancipation proclamation states that it is the President's purpose upon the next meeting of Congress to recommend the adoption of a practical measure so that the effort to "colonize persons of African decent with their consent, upon this continent or elsewhere with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there," will be continued. Nicolay and Hay,
[19] It is interesting to note that the colored population seemed very little in favor of colonization. "It is something singular that the colored race—those in reality most interested in the future destinies of Africa—should be so lightly affected by the evidences continually being presented in favor of colonization."
