In the article, LEARNING THE LESSONS OF HISTORY: SLAVE SONGS, REPATRIATION, INSURRECTION, INTEGRATION, NATIONALISM & THE ORIGINAL #ADOS MOVEMENT FROM 1792 TO 1861 , we learned that
up until 1832:
The people captured from their homelands in Africa and brought to the American colonies were not Christian.
Oral history, slave songs (coded), and modern scholarship record that the desire of the slaves was to return to Africa.
The enslaved people from Africa were willing to rebel, revolt, risk death and kill their white Christian slave masters in order to obtain their freedom.
Christianity was formally introduced TO PREVENT INSURRECTIONS AND TO ENCOURAGE DOCILITY, OBEDIENCE TO THE WHITE SLAVE MASTER, and INTEGRATION while COLONIZATION was adopted for the same purpose by removing free blacks who were considered the most troublesome segment of the population as well as slaves who desired to return to their homelands.
The indoctrinated Christian free colored people held meetings which the enslaved population could not do, and based on a Christian idealism and an extremely naive understanding of the US Constitution, decided that the white slave masters would be persuaded to grant them all the rights and privileges provided for in the U.S Constitution.
The United States, through the American Colonization Society, were prepared to grant the desire of the slaves and begin returning them to Africa (repatriation as a form of reparation). Rightfully suspect and critical of the Society’s motives, some indoctrinated Christian free Negroes used their advantage of position to propagandize and misrepresent the will of the vast majority of slaves and free Negroes. These indoctrinated Christian free Negroes sabotaged the return of tens of thousands of slaves just prior to the Civil War.
So-called Black Leadership, instead of working together to see that all interests were advanced, instead fought bitterly against each other.
Part 2 of this series is LAND HAS ALWAYS BEEN CENTRAL TO THE SOLUTION OF AMERICA'S RACE PROBLEM. This is Part 3.
MORE FROM W.E.B. DUBOIS' BLACK RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA: 1860-1880
“In December, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted, a curious result followed: twenty-nine Representatives were added to the South. Since the adoption of the Constitution, the basis of congressional representation had been the free population, including free Negroes and three-fifths of the slaves. [Thaddeus] Stevens said that with this basis of representation unchanged,
‘The eighty-three Southern members, with the Democrats [Siphiwe note: today’s Republicans], that will in the best times be elected from the North, will always give them a majority in Congress and in the White House and the halls of Congress. I need not depict the ruin that would follow. Assumption of the rebel debt or repudiation of the Federal debt would be sure to follow. The oppression of the freedmen; the re-amendment of their State constitutions, and the reestablishment of slavery would be the inevitable result. That they would scorn and disregard their present constitutions, forced upon them in the midst of martial law, would be both natural and just. No one who has any regard for freedom of elections can look upon those governments, forced upon them in duress, with any favor.’
This was the cogent, clear argument of Thaddeus Stevens, the politician. But Thaddeus Stevens was never a mere politician. He cared nothing for constitutional subtleties nor even for political power. He was a stern believer in democracy, both in politics and in industry, and he made his second argument turn on the economic freedom of the slave.
‘We have turned, or are about to turn, loose four million slaves without a hut to shelter them or a cent in their pockets. The infernal laws of slavery have prevented them from acquiring an education, understanding the commonest laws of contract, or of managing the ordinary business of life. This Congress is bound to provide for them until they can take care of themselves. If we do not furnish them with homesteads, and hedge them around with protective laws; if we leave them to the legislation of their late masters, we had better have left them in bondage.’
He then resolutely went further in a defense of pure democracy, although he knew that in this argument he was venturing far beyond the practical beliefs of his auditors:
‘Governor Perry of South Carolina and other provisional governors and orators proclaim that ‘this is the white man’s government” . . . Demagogues of all parties, even some high in authority, gravely shout, ‘this is the white man’s government.’ What is implied by this? That one race of men are to have the exclusive rights forever to rule this nation, and to exercise all acts of sovereignty, while all other races and nations and colors are to be their subjects, and have no voice in making the laws and choosing the rulers by whom they are to be governed. . . .
Our fathers repudiated the whole doctrine of the legal superiority of families or races, and proclaimed the equality of men before the law. Upon that they created a revolution and built the Republic. They were prevented by slavery from perfecting the superstructure whose foundation they had thus broadly laid. For the sake of the Union they consented to wait, but never relinquished the idea of its final completion.
The time to which they looked forward with anxiety has come. It is our duty to complete their work. If this Republic is not now made to stand on their great principles, it has no honest foundation, and the Father of all men will still shake it to its center. If we have not yet been sufficiently scourged for our national sin to teach us to do justice to all God’s creatures, without distinction of race or color, we must expect the still more heavy vengeance of an offended Father. . . .
This is not a white man’s Government, in the exclusive sense in which it is used. To say so is political blasphemy, for it violates the fundamental principles of our gospel of liberty. This is Man’s Government, the Government of all men alike; not that all men will have equal power and sway within it. Accidental circumstances, natural and acquired endowment and ability will vary their fortunes. But equal rights to all the privileges of the Government is innate in every immortal being, no matter what the shape or color of the tabernacle which it inhabits. . . .
Sir, this doctrine of a white man’s Government is as atrocious as the infamous sentiment that damned the late Chief Justice to everlasting fame; and, I fear, to everlasting fire.’
The ensuing debate in the House and Senate flamed over all creation, but it started with a note of moral triumph. . . . .
Congressional amendments of every sort poured into Congress concerning the national and Confederate debt, the civil rights of freedmen, the establishment of republican government, the basis of representation, payment for slaves and the future powers of Federal government and the states. Argument swirled in a maelstrom of logic. No matter where it started, and how far afield in legal metaphysics it strayed, always it returned and had to return to two focal points: Shall the South be rewarded for unsuccessful secession by increased political power; and: Can the freed Negro be a part of American democracy?
Thither all argument again and again returned; but it tried desperately to crowd out these real points by appealing to higher constitutional metaphysics. This constitutional argument was astonishing. Around and around it went in dizzy, silly dialectics. Here were grown, sensible men arguing about a written form of government adopted ninety years before, when mend did not believe that slavery could outlive their generation in this country, or that civil war could possibly be its result; when no man foresaw the Industrial Revolution of the rise of the Cotton Kingdom; and yet now, with incantation and abracadabra, the leaders of a nation tried to peer back into the magic crystal, and out of a a bit of paper called the Constitution, find eternal and immutable law laid down for their guidance forever and ever, Amen!
They knew perfectly well that no such omniscient law existed or ever had existed. Yet, in order to conceal the fact, they twisted and distorted and argued: these states are dead; but states can never die. These states have gone out of the Union; but states can never go out of the Union, and to prevent this we fought and won a war; but while we were fighting, these states were certainly not in the Union, else why did we fight? And how now may they come back? They are already back because they were never really out. Then what were we fighting for? For union. But we had union and we have got union, only these constituent states never die. Then they have forfeited statehood, and become territories. But statehood cannot be forfeited; conspirators within the states interfered, and now the interference has stopped. But as long as the interference lasted, there was surely no union. Oh, yes, only it did not function; we need not now provide for its functioning again, for the Constitution already provides for that.
Where was the Constitution during the war? But the war is ended; and now the Constitution prevails; unless the Constitution prevails, this is no nation, there is no President; we have no real Congress, since it does not represent the nation. But who represented the nation during the war? And by that token, who saved the nation and killed slavery? Shall the nation that saved the nation now surrender its power to rebels who fought to preserve slavery? There are no rebels! The South is loyal and slavery is dead. How can the loyalty of the South be guaranteed, and has the black slave been made really free? Freedom is a matter of state right. So was secession. Must we fight that battle over again? Yes, if you try to make monkeys equal to men. What caused the war but your own insistence that men were at once monkeys and real estate? Gentlemen, gentlemen, and fellow Americans, let us have peace! But what is peace? Is it slavery of all poor men, and increased political power for the slaveholders? Do you want to wreak vengeance on the conquered and the unfortunate? Do you want to reward rebellion by increased power to rebels?
And so on, around and around, and up and down, day after day, week after week, with only here and there a keen, straight mind to cut the cobwebs and to say in effect with Seward through Johnson: Damn the Nigger; let us settle down to work and trade! Or to declare with Stevens and Sumner: Make the slaves free with land, education and the ballot, and then let the South return to its place. Or to say with Blaine and Conkling and Bingham, not in words but in action: Guard property and industry; when their position is impregnable, let the South return; we will then hold it with black votes, until we capture it with white capital.
After all this blather, the nation and its Congress found itself back to the two plain problems: The basis of representation in Congress and the status of the Negro. When it came to the Negro, the old dogmatism leaped to the fore and would not down. Chandler of New York regarded Farnsworth’s demand for Negro equality as not only an attack on foreigners but ‘an insult to white citizens.’ When the Constitution said, ‘people,’ it meant ‘white people.’ And he stood for ‘the purity of the white race.’ Fink declared that Ohio would never let Negroes vote with his consent. This is ‘and of right ought to be a white man’s government,’ said Boyer of Pennsylvania, and he declared that eighteen of the twenty-five states now represented in Congress would not let the Negro vote. . . . .
Th South represented by the Border States had to confine itself to constitutional metaphysics, or else blurt out, as some of its spokesman did, a new defense of the old slavery. The West, on the other hand, had a real and disturbing argument . . .
What was it the nation wanted? Charles Sumner told the nation what it ought to want, but there was no doubt that it did not yet want this. Thaddeus Stevens knew what the nation ought to want, but as a practical politician his business was to see how much of this he could get enacted into actual law.
There came before the 39th Congress some 140 different proposals to change the Constitution of the United States, including 45 on apportionment, 31 on civil and political rights, and 13 forbidding payment for slaves. Over half of these affected the status of the freedmen. . . .
On October 10, 1865 [President Andrew Johnson] talked to the First Colored Regiment of the District of Columbia troops who had recently returned from the South. He congratulated them on serving with patience and endurance and exhorted them to be tranquil and peaceful now that the war was ended:
‘Freedom is not a mere idea . . . Freedom is not simply the principle to live in idleness. Liberty does not mean merely to resort to the low saloons and other places of disreputable character. Freedom and liberty does not mean that people ought to live in licentiousness; but liberty means simply to be industrious and to be virtuous, to be upright in all our deals and relations with men. . . . You must give evidence that you are competent for the rights that the government has guaranteed you . . .
The institution of slavery is overthrown. But another part remains to be solved, and that is, can four millions of people, reared as they have been, with all the prejudices of the whites - can they take their places in the community, and be made to work harmoniously and congruously in our system? This is a problem to be considered. Are the digestive powers of the American government sufficient to receive this element in a new shape, and digest it and make it work healthfully upon the system that has incorporated it?’
He then hinted at colonization of the Negro population:
‘If it should be so that the two races cannot agree and live in peace and prosperity, and the laws of Providence require that they should be separated - in that event, looking to the far distant future, and trusting in God that it may never come - if it should come, Providence, that works mysteriously, but unerringly and certainly, will point out the way, and the mode, and the manner by which these people are to be separated, and they are to be taken to their land of inheritance and promise, for such a one is before them. Hence we are making the experiment.” . . .
Here President Johnson was clearly envisaging the extinction or voluntary removal of four million laborers in the South, and the settlement of the problem of their presence in the United States by replacing them with white labor. On the other hand, he seemed anxious to have them protected in their present new status and it was understood, both from the message and from other sources, that the President was in favor of continuing the Freedmen’s Bureau.
The temper of Congress was firm. What should be done in Reconstruction was a matter for deliberation, thought and care. It could not be settled by the Southern leaders who brought on the crisis, working alone in conjunction with the President and his cabinet. On the other hand, what the nation wanted was by no means clear. There was among its millions no one mind. There was among its various groups no unanimity. . . . “
[Siphiwe note: Here I remind people that LAND HAS ALWAYS BEEN CENTRAL TO THE SOLUTION OF AMERICA'S RACE PROBLEM. AT THE MOMENT OF EMANCIPATION, THE VICTIMS OF THE CRIME OF TRAFFICKING FROM AFRICA AND ENSLAVEMENT IN AMERICA WANTED LAND AND THEY WANTED TO BE INFORMED OF THEIR STATUS IN THE WORLD.]
Louis Mehlinger, in The Attitude of the Free Negro Toward African Colonization, writes,
“To carry out more effectively the work of ameliorating the condition of the colored people, a National Council composed of two members chosen by election at a poll in each State, was organized in 1853. As many as twenty State conventions were to be represented. Before these plans could be well matured, however, those who believed that emigration was the only solution of the race problem called another convention to consider merely that question. Only those would not introduce the question of African emigration but favored colonization in some other parts, were invited. Among the persons thus interested were Reverend William Webb and Martin R. Delany of Pittsburgh, Doctor J. Gould Bias and Franklin Turner of Philadelphia, Reverend August R. Greene of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, James M. Whitfield of New York, William Lambert of Michigan, Henry Bibb, James Theodore Holly of Canada, and Henry M. Collins of California.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS CRITICIZED THIS STEP AS UNCALLED FOR, UNWISE, UNFORTUNATE, AND PREMATURE. . . . THE GREATEST ENEMY OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY AMONG THE FREEDMEN . . . . WAS FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
At the National Convention of Free People of Color, held in Rochester, New York, in 1853, Douglass was called upon to write the address to the colored people of the United States. A significant expression of this address was: ‘We ask that no appropriation whatever, State or national, be granted to the colonization scheme. ‘ . . . .[I]n writing to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe in reply to her inquiry as to the best thing to be done for the elevation of the colored people, ‘The truth is,’ he said, ’we are here and here we are likely to remain. Individuals emigrate, nations never. We have grown up with this republic and I see nothing in her character or find in the character of the American people as yet, which compels the belief that we must leave the United States.’”
Hollis Lynch writes in Pan-Negro Nationalism in the New World Before 1862 that,
“Before Delany could act on his scheme, the largest Negro national conference up to that time was convened in Rochester, New York, in 1853, and the persistent division between emigrationists and anti-emigrationists was forced into the open.
THE ANTI-EMIGRATIONISTS, LED BY THE NEGRO LEADER FREDERICK DOUGLASS, PERSUADED THE CONFERENCE TO GO ON RECORD AS OPPOSING EMIGRATION.
But as soon as the conference was over, the emigrationists, led by Delany, James M. Whitfield, a popular poet, and James T. Holly, an accomplished Episcopalian clergyman, called a conference for August 1854, from which anti-emigrationists were to be excluded. Douglass described this action as ‘marrow and illiberal,’ and
HE SPARKED THE FIRST PUBLIC DEBATE AMONG AMERICAN NEGRO LEADERS ON THE SUBJECT OF EMIGRATION.
Here Douglass is betraying the expressed desire (through songs) of his enslaved brothers and sisters who wanted to leave the United States and return to Africa. This either/or rejection of emigration was a major mistake made by Douglass and other Christianized Negroes.
At the opening of the Civil War, according to DuBois,
“Frederick Douglass spoke for the free and educated black man. . . ‘Events more mighty than men, eternal Providence, all-wise and all-controlling, have placed us in new relations to the government and the government to us. . . Citizenship is no longer denied us under this government. Under the interpretation of our rights by Attorney General Bates, we are American citizens. . . we can import goods, own and sail ships and travel in foreign countries, with American passports in our pockets; and now, so far from there being any opposition, so far from excluding us from the army as soldiers, the President at Washington excluding us from the army as soldiers, the President at Washington, the Cabinet, and the Congress, the generals commanding and the whole army of the nation unite in giving us one thunderous welcome to share with them in the honor and glory of suppressing treason and upholding the star-spangled banner. . . . [Siphiwe note: Here Douglass is at best exaggerating, in reality, completely distorting and misrepresenting the facts of how and why blacks were welcomed into the Union army] I hold that the Federal Government was never, in its essence, anything but an antislavery government. Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed. There is in the Constitution no East, no West, no North, no South, no black, no white, no slave, no slaveholder, but all are citizens who are of American birth. Such is the government, fellow-citizens, you are now called upon to uphold with your arms. Such is the government, that you are called upon to cooperate with in burying rebellion and slavery in a common grave. Never since the world began was a better chance offered to a long enslaved and oppressed people. The opportunity is given us to be men. With one courageous resolution we may blot out the handwriting of ages against us. Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”
Hollis Lynch writes in Pan-Negro Nationalism in the New World Before 1862 that,
“The emigrationist position was generally strengthened by the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which led directly to the founding of the Weekly Anglo-African and the Anglo-African Magazine by Robert Hamiltion, who in 1859 urged Negroes to ‘set themselves zealously to work to create a position of their own - an empire which shall challenge the administration of the world, rivaling the glory of their historic ancestors.
Events in the United States were continuing to give impetus to the emigration movement: the failure of John Brown’s raid, the split in the Democratic Party, and the founding of the avowedly anti-slavery Republican Party had both exacerbated feelings against Negroes and increased the interest in emigration. By January 1861, the Haitian emigration campaign seemed to be succeeding. . . . . Indeed, by 1861 almost all American Negro leaders had given some expression of support to Negro emigration. Even the formidable Frederick Douglass gave in and accepted an invitation by the Haitian government to visit the country. Thus, when Delany and Campbell returned to the United States in late December 1860, they found that the feeling for emigration was stronger than ever . . . ‘Africa is our fatherland, we its legitimate descendants, and we will never agree or consent to see this . . . step that has been taken for her regeneration by her own descendants blasted.’ . . .
When Blyden and Crummell returned to Liberia in the fall of 1861, they reported the support of American Negroes for emigration. The Liberian government decided to act: legislation was passed by which Blyden and Crummell were appointed commissioners ‘to protect the cause of Liberia to the descendants of Africa in that country, and to lay before them the claims that Africa had upon their sympathies, and the paramount advantages that would accrue to them, their children and their race by their return to the fatherland.’
INDEED, WHEN IN THE SUMMER OF 1862 LINCOLN DECIDED TO PUT INTO EFFECT HIS SCHEME FOR GRADUAL NEGRO EMANCIPATION WITH COLONIZATION, HE RECEIVED NO SUPPORT FROM AMERICAN NEGRO LEADERS.
Thus when Blyden and Crummell returned to the United States as official commissioners in the summer of 1862, to urge American Negroes to ‘return to the fatherland,’ they found ‘an indolent and unmeaning sympathy - sympathy which put forth no effort, made no sacrifices, endured no self-denial, braved no obloquy for the sake of advancing African interests.’ Further, Lincoln’s proclamation of January 1, 1863, ending slavery, and the use of later in that year of Negro troops in the Union army, made American Negroes feel sure that a new day had dawned for them.
In this they were wrong, of course. Although Negroes were awarded political and civil rights during the period of Reconstruction (1867 -1877), their hopes of full integration within American society were largely frustrated. This disappointment, continuing throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, again resulted in a desire to leave for other parts of the Americas or for Africa.”
Miles Mark Fisher writes in “Deep River”,:
“The task of the colonizationists was yet incomplete. They had to supply Negroes with actual ships on the ocean, and they did so. Nine transport ships went to Liberia under the auspices of the American Colonization Society between 1827 and 1830. . . . Notwithstanding, its evolution was in conformity with what Negroes wanted, and its permanent organization to send Negroes outside the United States provided that it be ‘with their consent.’ Richard Allen, [Frederick Douglass] and William Lloyd Garrison should not be considered interpreters of the aspirations of Negroes to the neglect of colonizationists like Lott Cary and Jehudi Ashmun. Nineteenth-century North Americans were persuaded that free Negroes could not become better than they were in the United States.
FREE NEGROES AS WELL AS SLAVES WERE MISREPRESENTED.”
THUS, FREDERICK DOUGLASS LAUNCHED THE INTEGRATION MOVEMENT TO COUNTER THE DEMAND FOR LAND AND INDEPENDENCE.
By the time Douglass met with President Johnson in 1866, Douglass and his fellow Christian educated fellow integrationists completely sold out the newly emancipated slaves, claiming to speak for them and pursuing only civil rights in America and not the Black nationalism and repatriation which was the desire of the majority of black people just prior to the outbreak of the civil war. Continues DuBois,
“[President Johnson] was receiving a group of Negroes who were trying by direct appeal either to get his sympathy or to probe his animus against the race. The Freedmen’s Bureau Bill had passed but Johnson had not yet indicated what action he would take. The Civil Rights Bill and the first draft of the Fourteenth Amendment were before the Senate. Perhaps the delegation hoped to influence him. . . . .
In the interview with President Johnson, February 7, 1866, there were present George T. Downing of Rhode Island, William E Mathews of New York, John Hones of Philadelphia, John F. Cook of Washington, Joseph E. Otis, A. W. Ross, William Whipper, John M. Brown, Alexander Dunlap, Frederick Douglass and his son Lewis.
‘What was said on the occasion brought the whole question virtually before the American people. . . . The President shook hands with the colored men and then George T. Downing, a leading Negro from Newport, Rhode Island, opened the discussion. He said to the President: ‘We desire for you to know that we come feeling that we are friends meeting a friend.’ He said that they represented colored people from the ‘States of Illinois, Wisconsin, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the New England states, and the District of Columbia.’
They were not satisfied with an amendment prohibiting slavery but wanted it enforced by appropriate legislation.
‘We are Americans, native-born Americans; we are citizens. . . . We see no recognition of color or race in the organic law of the land. . . . . It has been shown in the present war that the government may justly reach its strong arm into the States and demand from those who owe it allegiance, their assistance and support. May it not reach out a like arm to secure and protect its subjects upon whom it has a claim?’
Then Frederick Douglas came forward and said: ‘Your noble and humane predecessor placed in our hands the sword to assist in saving the nation, and we do hope that you, his able successor, will favorably regard the placing in our hands, the ballot with which to save ourselves.’
[Siphiwe note: here again, Frederick Douglass sold out the vast majority of Black people who wanted a land and nation of their own or return to Africa].
The President was evidently embarrassed and floundered. He was not going to make a speech; he had jeopardized life, liberty and property, not only for the colored people, but for the great mass of people. He was a friend of the colored man, but ‘I do not want to adopt a policy that I believe will end in a contest between races, which if persisted in will result in the extermination of one or the other.’
He remembered his speech to Nashville Negroes before the election and repeated his willingness to be a ‘Moses to lead him from bondage to freedom,’ but not into a war of races. He said that one can talk about the ballot-box and justice and Declaration of Independence, but ‘suppose by some magic touch you can say to everyone, ‘You shall vote tomorrow.’ How much would that ameliorate their condition at this time?’
Then the President approached Douglass and said, ‘Now let us get closer up to this subject.’ He said he opposed slavery because it was a monopoly and gave profit and power to an aristocracy. By getting clear of the monopoly, they had abolished slavery.
Douglass started to interrupt, but the President was not through. He went on to show the position of the poor white in relation to the slave owners, and how the slaves despised the poor whites. Douglass denied this personally, but the President insisted that anyway, more colored people did, and this made the poor white man opposed both to the slave and his master; and that, therefore, there was enmity between the colored man and the poor white. Already the colored man had gained his freedom during the war, and if he and the poor white came into competition at the ballot-box, a ‘war of races’ would result.
Moreover, was it proper to put on a people, without their consent, Negro suffrage? [Siphiwe note: including the Negro himself, who was never asked if he wanted to become a citizen or what he wanted through a plebiscite procedure]. ‘Do you deny that first great principle of the right of the people to govern themselves?” Here Downing interrupted. ‘Apply what you have said, Mr. President, to South Carolina, for instance, where a majority of the inhabitants are colored.’ The President twisted uncomfortably and said that the matter to which he referred ‘comes up when a government is undergoing a fundamental change’ and he preferred to instance Ohio rather than South Carolina. Was it right to force Ohio to make a change in the elective franchise against its will?
He could not touch the question as to whether it was right to prevent a majority in South Carolina from ruling, because, to his mind, no number of Negroes could outweigh the will of whites. He stumbled on without mentioning this suppressed minor premise and said, “It is a fundamental tenet of my creed that the will of the people must be obeyed. Is there anything wrong or unfair in that?’
Douglass smiled, still thinking of South Carolina: ‘A great deal that is wrong, Mr. President, with all respect.’ But the President insisted: ‘It is the people of the states that must for themselves determine this thing. I do not want to be engaged in a work that will commence a war of races.’ Then he indicated that the interview was at an end; he was glad to have met them, and then thanked them for the compliment paid him.
Douglass returned the thanks, and said that they had not come to argue but if the President would grant permission, ‘We would endeavor to controvert some of the positions you have assumed.’ Mr Downing, too, suggested persuasively that the President, by his kind explanation, ‘must have contemplated some reply to the views which he has advanced.’
Douglass continued, ‘I would like to say one or two words in reply: You enfranchise your enemies and disfranchise your friends. . . . My own impression is that the very thing that your Excellency would avoid in the Southern states can only be avoided by the very measure that we proposed. . . . I would like to say a word or so in regard to that matter of the enfranchisement of the blacks as a means of preventing the very thing which your Excellency seems to apprehend - that is a conflict of races.’
The President naturally did not want to give publicity to views of Negroes antagonistic to his own, and said shortly that there were other places besides the South for the Negro to live. ‘But,’ said Douglass, ‘the masters have the making of the laws and we cannot get away from the plantation.’ ‘What prevents you?’ asked Johnson. Douglass replied that, ‘His master then decides for him where he shall go, where he shall work, how much he shall work . . . He is absolutely in the hands of those men.’
The President replied, ‘If the master now controls him or his actions, would he not control him in his vote?’ Douglass answered: ‘Let the Negro once understand that he has an organic right to vote, and he will raise up a party in the Southern states among the poor, who will rally with him. There is this conflict that you speak of between the wealthy slave owner and the poor man.’ The President replied eagerly: ‘You touch right upon the point there. There is this conflict and hence, I suggest emigration.’
The President then bowed his dark visitors out, saying they were all desirous of accomplishing the same ends but proposed to do so by following different roads. Douglass, turning to leave, said:
‘The President sends us to the people and we go to the people.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ answered the President, “I have great faith in the people. I believe they will do what is right.’
AND THUS, FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND HIS INTEGRATIONISTS DID NOTHING TO SECURE THE INTERESTS OF THE EMIGRATIONISTS AND NATIONALISTS LIKE MARTIN DELANY, HENRY HIGHLAND GARNETT, ALEXANDER CRUMMELL, AND EDWARD WILMOT BLYDEN.