NYTimes Charles Blow Opinion

[RJNorton]

I wonder if Lincoln's support of colonization as a humanitarian policy was influenced by several ministers in Springfield. On p. 168 of "Lincoln and the Preachers" (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1948) author Edgar DeWitt Jones mentions that Reverend Noyes W. Miner, a Springfield neighbor of the Lincolns and a Pastor of the First Baptist Church, had served with Lincoln on the board of managers of the Illinois State Colonization Society. Two clergymen from Springfield's First Presbyterian Church were also active in the effort toward colonization. These were the Reverend John Bergen and the Reverend Dr. John H. Brown. The next pastor after Brown, Dr. Frederick Wines, helped to organize a Freedmen's Aid Society to assist emancipated slaves.