MICHAEL BURLINGAME
speaks about
"Lincoln and Colonization"
a presentation to a joint meeting of the
Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia
and the
Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia
VIA ZOOM
About the Topic:
President Abraham Lincoln’s philosophy on race relations is complex.
In 1862, he met with a small delegation of free black clergymen, not to discuss African Americans’ voice in government, but a plan to colonize them abroad. The meeting’s minutes were recorded as follows:
Having all been seated, the President, after a few preliminary observations, informed them that a sum of money had been appropriated by Congress, and placed at his disposition for the purpose of aiding the colonization in some country of the people, or a portion of them, of African descent, thereby making it his duty, as it had for a long time been 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? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. 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.
Lincoln held a belief common among whites in both the North and South that it would be impossible for whites and blacks to live together peacefully in a United States without slavery. His support for colonization was long-standing, promoted by his political role model, Henry Clay.
The reason Lincoln took the unprecedented step of inviting black leaders to the White House was to convince them to support his vague colonization plan. While Congress had appropriated money for colonization, there was as of August 1862 no definite location decided on where to colonize the black population after emancipation. At the meeting, Lincoln mentioned Liberia, in West Africa, founded by the American Colonization Society in the 1820s, or some place in Central America or the Caribbean. It was clear that not only did the President want the support of these black leaders for colonization, but he also wanted them to determine the details of where and how colonization would be accomplished. He left them with a charge to come up with an appropriate colonization plan and report back to him when they finished.
While the black leaders that met with Lincoln agreed to consider the idea, no plan ever was forthcoming, as it was clear colonization had little appeal among most members of their race, free or slave. While Africa might be the land of their ancestors, African Americans were as attached to the land (of their birth or immigration) as any white person. A small percentage of black Americans found the idea of colonization appealing or were at least willing to give it a try, but the scant record of Lincoln’s colonization initiatives during the war evaporated most of this support. What most African Americans wanted during the Civil War was freedom and equality in their home country. Given their opposition and the dawning realization over the course of the war that colonization was impractical, President Lincoln and other northern leaders gradually gave up on the idea, especially as it became clear that the fears of an emancipation race war were proving unfounded.
Dr. Burlingame will discuss these events in his presentation on February 9, 2021, co-sponsored by the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia and the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia.
Sources:
https://cwemancipation.wordpre
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/li
About the Speaker:
Dr. Michael Burlingame currently holds the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He was born in Washington DC and attended Phillips Academy, Andover. He graduated from Princeton University and received his Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University.
As a freshman at Princeton University, Dr. Burlingame took the Civil War course taught by the eminent Lincolnian David Herbert Donald, who took him under his wing and made him a research assistant. In 1968, Dr. Burlingame joined the History Department at Connecticut College in New London, where he taught as the May Buckley Sadowski Professor of History Emeritus, until retiring in 2001. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Springfield in 2009.
Dr. Burlingame is the author of numerous books and publications, including: Abraham Lincoln: A Life ( a two volume set) and The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln.
Simon and Schuster will be publishing two new books by Dr. Burlingame this year: An American Marriage: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd (June 2021); and Emphatically the Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln and Racial Equality (2021).
In addition, he has edited or co-edited several volumes of Lincoln primary source and other materials, including:
- An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay's Interviews and Essays;
- Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay;
- Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks;
- Lincoln's Journalist: John Hay's Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860-1864
- A Reporter's Lincoln by Walter B. Stevens;
- With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865;
- At Lincoln's Side: John Hay's Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings;
- Inside the White House in War Times: Memoirs and Reports of Lincoln's Secretary by William O. Stoddard;
- Dispatches from Lincoln's White House: The Anonymous Civil War Journalism of Presidential Secretary William O. Stoddard;
- The Real Lincoln: A Portrait by Jesse W. Weik;
- “Lincoln's Humor" and Other Essays by Benjamin P. Thomas; and
- Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay
Abraham Lincoln: A Life won the 2010 Lincoln Prize, sponsored by the Gilder-Lehrman Institute for American History and Gettysburg College. The book also was a co-winner of the annual book prize awarded by the Abraham Lincoln Institute of Washington, D.C., and won the Russell P. Strange Book Award given annually by the Illinois State Historical Society for the best book on Illinois history.
Dr. Burlingame currently lives in Springfield, where he is working on several Lincoln-related projects.
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