The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921Various
History
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
I am aware of the impracticability of an immediate or early
execution of any plan that combines deportation with
emancipation, and of the inadmissibility of emancipation without
deportation. But I have yielded to the expediency of attempting a
gradual remedy, by providing for the double operation.
If emancipation was the sole object, the extinguishment of
slavery would be easy, cheap, and complete. The purchase by the
public of all female children, at their birth, leaving them in
bondage till it would defray the charge of rearing them, would,
within a limited period, be a radical resort.
With the condition of deportation it has appeared to me, that the
great difficulty does not lie either in the expense of
emancipation, or in the expense or the means of deportation, but
in the attainment--1, of the requisite asylums; 2, the consent of
the individuals to be removed; 3, the labour for the vacuum to be
created.
With regard to the expense--1, much will be saved by voluntary
emancipations, increasing under the influence of example, and the
prospect of bettering the lot of the slaves; 2, much may be
expected in gifts and legacies from the opulent, the
philanthropic, and the conscientious; 3, more still from
legislative grants by the States, of which encouraging examples
and indications have already appeared; 4, nor is there any room
for despair of aid from the indirect or direct proceeds of the
public lands held in trust by Congress. With a sufficiency of
pecuniary means, the facility of providing a naval transportation
of the exiles is shewn by the present amount of our tonnage and
the promptitude with which it can be enlarged; by the number of
emigrants brought from Europe to N. America within the last
year, and by the greater number of slaves which have been, within
single years, brought from the coast of Africa across the
Atlantic.
In the attainment of adequate asylums, the difficulty, though it
may be considerable, is far from being discouraging. Africa is
justly the favorite choice of the patrons of colonization; and
the prospect there is flattering--1, in the territory already
acquired; 2, in the extent of coast yet to be explored, and which
may be equally convenient; 3, the adjacent interior into which
the littoral settlements can be expanded under the auspices of
physical affinities between the new comers and the natives, and
of the moral superiorities of the former; 4, the great inland
regions now ascertained to be accessible by navigable waters, and
opening new fields for colonizing enterprises.
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