Saturday, April 1, 2017
LINCOLN, ALSO JEFFERSON MADISON CLAY, WAS AND REMAINED A COLONIZATIONIST
'In fact colonizationism took precedence over emancipation.' Gideon Welles on Lincoln, see Magness Page, p 108, 109.
As I have pointed out here, his whole political career resonated with this colonization theme.
Emancipation during the Civil War, without having first placed immediate colonization plans on a firm and agreed political footing, especially within his own party, was Lincoln's own special personal blunder, among other really big ones.
My suspicion is that the only way he might have gotten cooperation for such plans in our fragmented system, was to have threatened to halt the war, in its very midst, declare an armistice, treaty agreeing to secession, or something else, unless an agreed, firmly established, and multi year plan for colonization were first hammered out by Congress and agreed by him.
The other huge point to make (Clausewitz or whatever):
Why even embark on a war which, even if you quote ' win ', you cannot then achieve the outcome (colonization) which you most intended to achieve? See George Julian's remark, Magness and Page, p 109, re if he had known colonization would not work whether his preliminary notice to the rebels would have given.
After all, Lincoln had won the war, before he was killed, yet no colonization plan, whatsoever, worthy of the name had ever been firmly put in place and agreed by Congress.
In fact, the opposite was where it stood when he died.
Further, the decision to recruit blacks as Union soldiers violated Lincoln's own principles, and made the whole project for colonization difficult to carry forward. By the end of the war, there were about 100,000 of these, who had been armed.
Lincoln expressed concern that these freed trained and armed ex slaves might then go back into the south and commence a race war there. One wonders why he didn't think of these things before that time.
Nevertheless the Civil War outcome was nothing whatever like what he had hoped for:
My suspicion is that the only way he might have gotten cooperation for such plans in our fragmented system, was to have threatened to halt the war, in its very midst, declare an armistice, treaty agreeing to secession, or something else, unless an agreed, firmly established, and multi year plan for colonization were first hammered out by Congress and agreed by him.
The other huge point to make (Clausewitz or whatever):
Why even embark on a war which, even if you quote ' win ', you cannot then achieve the outcome (colonization) which you most intended to achieve? See George Julian's remark, Magness and Page, p 109, re if he had known colonization would not work whether his preliminary notice to the rebels would have given.
After all, Lincoln had won the war, before he was killed, yet no colonization plan, whatsoever, worthy of the name had ever been firmly put in place and agreed by Congress.
In fact, the opposite was where it stood when he died.
Further, the decision to recruit blacks as Union soldiers violated Lincoln's own principles, and made the whole project for colonization difficult to carry forward. By the end of the war, there were about 100,000 of these, who had been armed.
Lincoln expressed concern that these freed trained and armed ex slaves might then go back into the south and commence a race war there. One wonders why he didn't think of these things before that time.
Nevertheless the Civil War outcome was nothing whatever like what he had hoped for:
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races,-- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifyling them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality." Abraham Lincoln, 4th Debate.
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