The Purchase Price; Or, The Cause of CompromiseHough, Emerson
History
The Purchase Price; Or, The Cause of Compromise
Hough, Emerson
United States -- History -- 1815-1861 -- Fiction
As to the unfortunate work in which this warm-hearted enthusiast
thus impulsively engaged, small comment need be made, since its
failure so soon was to become apparent to the popular mind. The
Countess St. Auban was not the first to look to colonization and
deportation as the solution of the negro problem in America. But
as the Colonization Society for more than a decade had failed to
accomplish results, so did she in her turn fail. In a work which
continued through all that spring and summer, she drew again and
again upon her own private fortune. Carlisle and Kammerer had
charge of the details, but she herself was the driving force of the
enterprise. While they were abroad lecturing and asking
contributions to their cause--taking with them the slave girl Lily
as an example of what slavery had done--she remained at Washington.
They actually did arrange for the deportation of a ship-load of
blacks to Hayti, another ship-load to Liberia. A colony of blacks
whose freedom had been purchased was established in Tennessee,
others were planned for yet other localities. It was part of her
intent to establish nuclei of freed blacks in different portions of
the southern section.
In all this work Lily, late servant of Josephine St. Auban, assumed
a certain prominence, this being given to her not wholly with
wisdom. Although but little negro blood remained in her veins,
this former slave had not risen above the life that had surrounded
her. Ignorant, emotional, at times working herself into a frenzy
of religious zeal, she was farthest of all from being a sober judge
or a fair-minded agent for the views of others. Yet in time her
two guardians, Carlisle and Kammerer, unwisely allowed her more and
more liberty. She was even, in times of great hurry, furnished
funds to go upon trips of investigation for herself, as one best
fitted to judge of the conditions of her people. As to these
details, Josephine St. Auban knew little. There was enough to
occupy her mind at the center of these affairs, where labors grew
rapidly and quite beyond her original plan.
As is always the case in such hopeless enterprises, the expenses
multiplied beyond belief. True, contributions came meagerly from
the North, here and there some abolitionist appearing who would do
something besides write and preach. In all, more than a half
million dollars was spent before the end of the year 1851. Then,
swiftly and without warning, there came the end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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