NYTimes Charles Blow Opinion

[David Lockmiller]

(09-01-2023 10:08 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Many thanks to Steve for sending these articles.

Steve writes,

"Firstly, its an article from page 1 of the 15 August 1862 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer about what happened at the meeting the previous day. Please note, which a lot of commentators miss that it says that it is only given as the substance of the President's remarks, not exactly what Lincoln said.

The second is a larger quote from the August 16, 1862 letter mentioned by David. It's not a letter from the committee itself, but a letter from the chair of the committee, Edward Thomas. Even though he uses "we" in his letter he's speaking for himself and the letter is only signed by him. All five members of the committee selected to go to the White House had opposed emigration schemes Apparently, Lincoln's talk was impressive enough that Thomas changed his mind and began to support an African American colony, at least in Central America. Another member of the committee, the Rev. John T. Costin, who would later go on to become a prominent Republican politician in Reconstruction Georgia, opposed Lincoln's colonization proposal. I don't have enough information on the other three members of delegation's initial opinion of the Lincoln meeting. They don't seem to have changed their negative opinions of emigration but they also seemed reluctant to have an official statement issued condemning the scheme. As a result there was no official response to Lincoln's proposal. Perhaps they were impressed enough of the President during the meeting where they didn't want to embarrass him or maybe they didn't want to alienate Thomas after his change of opinion.

If one looks closely at the copied Philadelphia newspaper article of 15 August 1862, there are a lot of quotation marks made by the reporter quoting Lincoln. That's what reporters do for a living. The New York Times reporter wrote many of the same quotations, as I recall. President Lincoln requested multiple newspapers to report this story across the nation and would naturally expect accurate quotations by experienced reporters from major newspapers.

The second thing that I do not understand is why the Chairman of the Committee in his letter to President Lincoln would use the royal "We" when only expressing his own opinion. Why did he do this? It does not make any sense.

The end of the Philadelphia newspaper article of 15 August 1862 reads: "The chairman of the delegation briefly replied they would hold a consultation, and in a short time give an answer." After the consultation by the five committee members, one would expect a single person to write the agreed upon response of all five and to sign the letter in behalf of the committee (if the other members were not immediately available).

But would not the other four gentlemen make immediate public comment protesting a false misrepresentation of their actual views on the President's proposal? The Rev. John T. Costin opposed Lincoln's colonization proposal. Steve was not certain of the opinions of the other three committee members.

This afternoon I am going to the San Francisco Public Library to obtain a complete copy of James M. McPherson's article in PHYLON (4th Qtr. 1965) titled "Abolitionist and Negro Opposition to Colonization during the Civil War."

I have access to only the first page at the present time. James McPherson wrote in part: "[A]ll colonization plans had one thing in common: the belief that Negroes and whites in America could never live together peacefully as equals. Colonization, therefore, was the only possible solution of the vexing slavery and racial problems."