Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  Lincoln carefully warned his black guests that settlers had no guarantee that they would prosper in Chiriqui: “I am not sure you will succeed. The Government may lose the money, but we cannot succeed unless we try; but we think, with care, we can succeed. The political affairs in Central America are not in quite as satisfactory condition as I wish. There are contending factions in that quarter; but it is true all the factions are agreed alike on the subject of colonization, and want it, and are more generous than we are here. To your colored race they have no objection.”

  Lincoln expressed a keen desire to make sure that American blacks would not become second-class citizens in Panama. He pledged to the black delegation that he “would endeavor to have you made equals, and have the best assurance that you should be the equals of the best. The practical thing I want to ascertain is whether I can get a number of able-bodied men, with their wives and children, who are willing to go, when I present evidence of encouragement and protection. Could I get a hundred tolerably intelligent men, with their wives and children, to ‘cut their own fodder,’ so to speak? Can I have fifty? If I could find twenty-five able-bodied men, with a mixture of women and children, good things in the family relation, I think I could make a successful commencement. I want you to let me know whether this can be done or not. This is the practical part of my wish to see you. These are subjects of very great importance, worthy of a month’s study, [instead] of a speech delivered in an hour. I ask you then to consider seriously not pertaining to yourselves merely, nor for your race, and ours, for the present time, but as one of the things, if successfully managed, for the good of mankind—not confined to the present generation, but as

  From age to age descends the lay,

  To millions yet to be,

  Till far its echoes roll away,

  Into eternity.

  (Earlier that day, Lincoln had told Liberian President Roberts and William McLain, a financial agent for the American Colonization Society, that he believed Liberia would be a suitable locale for free blacks to settle. Angry at Lincoln’s inconsistency in praising Liberia as a venue for colonization and then criticizing it a short time later, McLain denounced the Chiriqui plan: “Out upon all such men and such schemes!”)166

  The black delegation promised to consider Lincoln’s request carefully. Two days later its chairman, Edward M. Thomas, who headed the Anglo African Institute for the Encouragement of Industry and Art, told the president that he had originally opposed colonization but that he had changed his mind and would like authorization to proselytize in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia on behalf of that scheme.

  Some of Thomas’s fellow blacks supported emigration, including well-known men like Henry Highland Garnet, Lewis Woodson, and Martin R. Delany. (In 1865, Lincoln met with Delany and appointed him a major in the army, the first black to achieve so high a rank.) Support for colonization among blacks had grown during the 1850s. In 1854, a black emigration convention in Cleveland had discussed a large-scale exodus. Delany inspected sites in the Niger Valley for the relocation of his fellow blacks; James Whitefield did the same in Central America; and James Theodore Holly looked into the West Indies. In 1858, blacks in New York under the leadership of Henry Highland Garnet founded the African Civilization Society to encourage black emigration to Yoruba. In 1862, Congress received petitions from 242 blacks in California, expressing the desire to be colonized “in some country in which their color will not be a badge of degradation,” and from blacks in the District of Columbia, asking to be sent to Central America.167 A few years earlier, Owen Lovejoy had introduced into the Illinois Legislature “a remonstrance from the colored people of the State against their colonization in Africa, until they are all able to read and write, and unless separate colonies be assigned to those of different shades of color. The reason assigned for the latter objection is, that blacks and mulattoes cannot live in harmony together.”168

  A journalist characterized Lincoln’s remarks as “very sympathetic and paternal,” manifesting “his sincere and earnest desire to see them [black people] invested with the rights and privileges of real freemen.” Remarkable was the president’s willingness to make the “humiliating statement” that “the semi-civilized States of South America ‘are more generous’ than the great model Republic.”169 Henry Highland Garnet lauded the Chiriqui scheme as “the most humane, and merciful movement which this or any other administration has proposed for the benefit of the enslaved.”170

  Most black leaders, however, were less enthusiastic. Among them was Robert Purvis, a well-to-do Philadelphian, who wrote Lincoln a stinging public letter: “It is in vain you talk to me about ‘two races’ and their ‘mutual antagonism.’ In the matter of rights, there is but one race, and that is the human race. God has made of one blood all nations, to dwell on the face of the earth. … Sir, this is our country as much as it is yours, and we will not leave it.”171 Another black in the City of Brotherly Love predicted that Lincoln’s colonization scheme would “arouse prejudice” and “increase enmity against us, without bringing with it the remedy proposed or designed.”172 Fellow townsmen published An Appeal from the Colored Men of Philadelphia to the President of the United States acknowledging that many blacks were “[b]enighted by the ignorance entailed upon us, oppressed by the iron-heel of the master who knows no law except that of worldly gain and self-aggrandizement” and asking “why should we not be poor and degraded? … We regret the ignorance and poverty of our race.” But, they pointed out, “[m]any of us, in Pennsylvania, have our own houses and other property, amounting, in the aggregate, to millions of dollars. Shall we sacrifice this, leave our homes, forsake our birth-place, and flee to a strange land, to appease the anger and prejudice of the traitors now in arms against the Government, or their aiders and abettors in this or in foreign lands?”173 The Rev. Mr. William T. Catto, speaking at a rally in Manhattan, declared that the president was “pandering to the mob spirit.”174

  Frederick Douglass excoriated the president for appearing “silly and ridiculous” by uttering remarks that revealed “his pride of race and blood, his contempt for negroes and his canting hypocrisy.” Douglass scouted the administration’s entire record on slavery: “Illogical and unfair as Mr. Lincoln’s statements are, they are nevertheless quite in keeping with his whole course from the beginning of his administration to this day, and confirms the painful conviction that though elected as an anti-slavery man by Republican and Abolitionist voters, Mr. Lincoln is quite a genuine representative of American prejudice and negro hatred and far more concerned for the preservation of slavery, and the favor of the Border States, than for any sentiment of magnanimity or principle of justice and humanity.” Lincoln, in Douglass’s view, was saying to blacks: “I don’t like you, you must clear out of the country.” The polite tone of Lincoln’s remarks “is too thin a mask not to be seen through,” for they lacked the “genuine spark of humanity” and a “sincere wish to improve the condition of the oppressed.”175 Hyperbolically, Douglass declared that “the nation was never more completely in the hands of the Slave power.”176

  White Radicals were also disenchanted. Lamenting the president’s remarks, Chase confided to his diary: “How much better would be a manly protest against prejudice against color!—and a wise effort to give freemen homes in America!”177 William Lloyd Garrison, a long-time opponent of colonization, scornfully wrote that Lincoln’s “education (!) with and among ‘the white trash’ of Kentucky was most unfortunate for his moral development.” If the president understood that it “is not their color, but their being free, that makes their presence here intolerable,” he “would sooner have the earth opened and swallow him up, than to have made the preposterous speech he did.” Garrison further declared Lincoln’s words to be “puerile, absurd, illogical, impertinent, untimely.” As for the ability of blacks and whites to coexist, Garrison insisted that everyone “differs from everybody else in height, bulk, and looks. Is any one of these ‘physical differences,’ more than another, a
justifiable ground for colonization? The whole thing is supremely ridiculous.”178 Fellow abolitionist Beriah Green could scarcely contain his indignation. “Such braying—babbling—chattering Lincoln indulged in in his interview with ‘the Negro Delegation!’ ” he exclaimed. “Enough to turn the stomach of an ostrich! Such driveling folly! Such brazen impudence! Such glaring selfishness! Such a ‘blind Leader of the Blind!’ ”179

  The Chicago Tribune objected on practical grounds: “The blacks can neither be colonized across the Gulf, or sent through our lines to the North. Their numbers utterly forbid and render futile these measures save on the most limited scale.”180 The New York Times also demurred: “No, Mr. President. The enfranchised blacks must find homes, without circumnavigating the seas at the National expense.”181 Democrats scoffed at the proposal. The New York Evening Express protested that Lincoln’s scheme would “entail upon the White Labor of the North, the doom and debt of the tax-groaning serfs and labor-slaves of Europe.”182

  Despite the support of chairman Edward M. Thomas for colonization, eventually the black delegation rejected Lincoln’s advice, asserting that it was “inexpedient, inauspicious and impolitic to agitate the subject of emigration of the colored people of this country anywhere. … We judge it unauthorized and unjust for us to compromise the interests of over four and a half millions of our race by precipitate action on our part.”183

  As if that rejection were not enough to kill the Chiriqui scheme, an aroma of corruption further undermined support for it. There was good reason to suspect corruption. The plan to colonize blacks in the Chiriqui province was the brainchild of a wealthy Philadelphia businessman, Ambrose W. Thompson, who alleged that he owned large tracts of land there. In the 1850s, he formed the Chiriqui Improvement Company and unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the Navy Department to buy Panamanian coal. In August 1861, when Thompson offered to sell coal at half the market price if American blacks could be colonized there to work the mines, he attracted congressional support. To investigate the matter, Lincoln appointed a commission and enlisted the aid of his brother-in-law, Ninian Edwards, who reported favorably on the plan to purchase cheap coal from the Chiriqui Company. In November, Interior Secretary Smith echoed those sentiments. The following month, Francis P. Blair, Sr., supplied the president with an elaborate brief endorsing Thompson’s scheme, which he said might yield several desirable results, including “the acquisition of safe and well fortified Harbors on each side of the Isthmus—a good and sufficient Railway transportation between them—a command of the Coal-fields to afford adequate supply for our Navy – A million of acres of land for the colonization of American Freeman in Homesteads and freeholds.”184 Chase told the president that he was “much impressed by the prospects” that the contract offered.185 On November 15, Thompson reported that “Lincoln is willing to make a contract for coal, at one dollar less per ton than Govt now pays.”186 Twelve days later the president urged Chase to endorse the contract if it could be done “consistently with the public interest.”187 The day after Christmas, Assistant Secretary of the Interior John P. Usher reported that Lincoln “is quite anxious to make the arrangement but is held back by the objection of Seward,” who “thinks that the Government had better make the arrangements direct with the New Grenadian Government,” and by the objection of Chase, “who complains on account of the money.”188

  A more telling objection was raised by Navy Secretary Welles, whom Lincoln had asked to review the contract. Welles concluded “that there was fraud and cheat in the affair,” that it “appeared to be a swindling speculation,” and that the entire project “was a rotten remnant of an intrigue of the last administration.”189 Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, agreed. In investigating Thompson’s claim to the land, Stevens and his colleagues “found that he had not a particle of title to an inch of it; and if he had the whole thing was not worth a dollar. … the whole country is so unhealthy as to be wholly uninhabitable.”190

  In the spring of 1862, when Congress appropriated money for colonizing the freedmen of Washington, Lincoln instructed Secretaries Chase and Smith to reexamine Thompson’s proposal. The busy Chase delegated the task to Treasury Solicitor Edward Jordan, who joined Smith in endorsing a plan to have the Chiriqui Improvement Company provide coal for the navy and to colonize blacks on its land. The president received similar advice from Assistant Secretary Usher, as well as from James Mitchell. Joining in the lobbying effort on behalf of Thompson’s company was Kansas Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy, who was authorized in late August to issue a public appeal, sanctioned by the president, urging blacks to volunteer for colonization. Though “not inclined to it himself originally,” Pomeroy said he would “devote himself with his whole energies to put it through.”191 The senator was quickly swamped with applications from blacks eager to leave, including two sons of Frederick Douglass. Henry Highland Garnet also expressed a desire to join them.

  Lincoln’s choice of Pomeroy was curious. To be sure, the senator had helped organize the settlement of the Kansas Territory in the 1850s and might have seemed a likely candidate to assist with a similar enterprise in the tropics. But his integrity was suspect. The New York Tribune described him as a man who “weighed everything by a money standard. He has judged all public measures by the cash that was in them; and estimated all men by the amount it would take to buy them.”192 In 1873, a committee of the Kansas Legislature found Pomeroy “guilty of the crime of bribery, and attempting to corrupt by offers of money, members of the Legislature of the State of Kansas.”193 Pomeroy served as the model for corrupt Senator Dilworthy in The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. Thaddeus Stevens implied that several members of Congress received bribes from the Chiriqui lobby.

  Strangely, Pomeroy had ridiculed the idea of colonization earlier in 1862. How and why he became an enthusiast for it later in the year is unclear. He told Wisconsin Senator James R. Doolittle that his April 1862 speech on the subject helped change his mind and that he desired more for blacks than his Radical colleagues did: “They want the freedom of the Col’d man—and are satisfied with that. I want for him something more than that—To be a free laborer—and only that, is not his manhood. I want for him the rights & enjoyments—of a free man.” Because blacks’ “full rights & privileges cannot be secured” in the United States, Pomeroy was “for the Negro’s securing his rights and his nationality—in the clime of his nativity—on the soil of the Tropics.”194 By appointing this shady character, Lincoln may have been trying to win support for colonization from Chase, a friend of Pomeroy’s.

  The lobbying pressure on Lincoln worked, even though the director of the Smithsonian Institution reported that Chiriqui coal was of such poor quality that it was unsuitable for naval vessels. On September 11, the president provisionally endorsed a contract with the Chiriqui Company to settle at least 50,000 blacks. Final authorization would be made if Pomeroy reported favorably after visiting Panama to verify the company’s assertions. According to John Palmer Usher, “very many consequential niggers from the North are manifesting a desire to go.”195 In fact, by mid-September, 500 “good substantial colored men & women” had prepared to emigrate, and 4,000 more placed their names on a waiting list. Pomeroy would escort them to their new homeland and help them get established. The senator was prepared to leave in early October with those 500 emigrants, most of whom were given farm tools as well as “everything necessary to comfort and industry.”196

  The president’s decision to endorse the Chiriqui scheme may have been influenced by an old friend from his days in Congress, Richard W. Thompson, who served as the company’s attorney and lobbyist. On September 12, the former Indiana congressman and Whig leader received a contract from Ambrose Thompson awarding him 20 percent of whatever the company might receive for its land. But Thompson’s involvement in the Chiriqiui proposal led to its ultimate abandonment. Calling it a “swindle,” the Albany Evening Journal remarked that “Thompson’s conn
ection with the project is enough to stamp its character and purpose” and urged the president “to look well into this scheme before committing himself to it.”197 Lincoln did so. He told Ambrose W. Thompson that he had intended to back the program fully “but that representations had been made to him, that the whole matter was a speculation, a job, that the money required to be paid was not intended to be used in the developing of the property, but in the payment of old debts, judgments, mortgages &c.” He explained that “it had been said his friend Dick Thompson was to get money” for services rendered earlier. Lincoln added that “he was willing to do anything personal to serve” his former colleague in the House of Representatives, “yet he could not go before the people admitting that he had so applied public money, on a contract that was to be appropriated to paying private debts.” He insisted that “no public money should with his knowledge go to pay private debts.”198 Despite this refusal, Lincoln and Thompson remained on good terms.

  Other problems arose. Ambrose Thompson’s title to the land proved questionable; the cabinet and some newspapers raised serious doubts about the ethics of Pomeroy and Richard Thompson; and American blacks showed little inclination to emigrate. Most importantly, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, San Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil, and Honduras objected, fearful of becoming “Africanized.” They also regarded the scheme as something akin to the filibustering expeditions of the 1850s. As the New York Tribune observed, no nation “would choose to be made the Botany Bay of other nations which should see fit to pick out a poor, ignorant, despised class of their people for exportation.”199 Seward, anticipating that the North might soon be dragged into a war with Europe, wished to maintain good relations with Central and South America. In early October, Lincoln accepted the secretary of state’s advice and shelved the project. It was eventually scrapped.