NYTimes Charles Blow Opinion

[David Lockmiller]

(08-30-2023 12:19 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote:The undisputed fact is that President Abraham Lincoln’s August 14, 1862 one hour speech on a black colonization proposal to the Committee of five prominent free black men was unanimously well-received by the Committee members.

In what universe?

Best
Rob

The following is more from the post I made on January 25, 2023 on the 1619 Project:

[T]he New York Times itself describes the close of President Lincoln's speech in the following manner:

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, 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 . . . ."

The Chairman of the delegation briefly replied that "they would hold a consultation and in a short time give an answer." The President said, "Take your full time -- no hurry at all."

Although the President had suggested in the close of his speech that "these are subjects of very great importance -- worthy of a month's study, of a speech delivered in an hour," the Committee chairman, in behalf of the entire Committee, responded to President Lincoln's proposal in a letter two day's later on August 16, 1862 as follows:

“We were entirely hostile to the movement until all the advantages were so ably brought to our views by you,” the delegation chief wrote Lincoln two days later, promising to consult with prominent blacks in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston who he hoped would “join heartily in Sustaining Such a movement.” (Source: Team of Rivals, The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin, (2005), page 469.)

[Steve]

How'd this conversation change course so wildly? I haven't even gotten around to watching that PraegerU video on Frederick Douglass mentioned in the Blow article before I response comment! By the time I get around to it, Roger may already have closed off comments at this rate.

[Rob Wick]

Quote:How'd this conversation change course so wildly?

Steve,

I am perfectly willing to accept some of the responsibility for this because David often feels it necessary to protect Lincoln from the wicked Hannah Nikole-Jones and the NYT's 1619 project. I think his viewpoint is fatally flawed. Even though my initial point was that even historically inaccurate books can be bestsellers, David seems to think that since the 1619 Project won the Pulitzer Prize, every anti-Lincoln troll in America will successfully remove Lincoln from the public sphere. Without checking, I argue that no one can even name who won a Pulitzer Prize for a particular year, so it is generally irrelevant except as a marketing tool.

David, as for your quotation from Team of Rivals, which is not fatally flawed but also not the last word on Lincoln's administration, you engage in selective editing. Show me in the historical record where any of the five meeting with Lincoln worked to further the proposal. You can search all you want, but you'll never find it. When they wrote Lincoln, they were being polite. In an article in Phylon in 1965, James McPherson wrote:

"Soon...the delegation of Negroes to which Lincoln had spoken on August 14 issued their formal reply to the President's proposal. They deemed it '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.'
The Boston Commonwealth, an abolitionist weekly, commented dryly: 'The colored people do not seem to appreciate the advantages of the coal mine speculation recommended to them.'"

Finally, a furious Frederick Douglass wrote, "It expresses merely the desire to get rid of them, and reminds one of the politeness with which a man might try to bow out of his house some troublesome creditor or the witness of some old guilt."

Sorry, David, but again, you are wrong.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(08-31-2023 08:43 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  David, as for your quotation from Team of Rivals, which is not fatally flawed but also not the last word on Lincoln's administration, you engage in selective editing.

In an article in Phylon in 1965, James McPherson wrote:

"Soon...the delegation of Negroes to which Lincoln had spoken on August 14 issued their formal reply to the President's proposal. They deemed it '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.'

Sorry, David, but again, you are wrong.

Best
Rob

What was my selective editing, Rob?

Also, I was unable to confirm your quotation below. By "soon," do you mean two days later on August 16, 1862?

Phylon in 1965, James McPherson wrote:

"Soon.. the delegation of Negroes to which Lincoln had spoken on August 14 issued their formal reply to the President's proposal. They deemed it '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.'

[RJNorton]

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. Apparently, a reporter interviewed one or more of the delegation afterwards. Whatever they told this (white) reporter was filtered through his mind and meanings before becoming words on a page.

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.

I also have two other articles to post to the Forum, about the reactions of other African-Americans who were not part of the delegation. The first is from page 2 of the 12 September 1862 edition of the Liberator where a man named Robert Purvis strongly condemned the Central America emigration scheme. The second is from page 3 of the 11 October 1862 edition of the Pacific Appeal, itself reprinting the article from the Anglo-African newspaper. In the column, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, who would later become the US minister (ambassador) to Liberia during the Arthur administration, relates his opinion supporting the colonization plan.

[Rob Wick]

It appears that while I was composing this, Roger posted the information provided by Steve. I will post this, even though some of the material is redundant. My sincere thanks to Steve, who reminded me of an article published in Civil War History in June of 2010 by Kate Masur entitled "The African American Delegation to Abraham Lincoln: A Reappraisal." While I don't accept all of Masur's conclusions, she has provided a solidly researched and very well-thought-out history of the delegation. While I don't have the time or inclination to give chapter and verse on Masur's thesis, I will try to give a brief synopsis.

Masur points out that the main source for historical remembrance where the delegation is concerned came from Benjamin Quarles' book The Negro in the Civil War, published in 1953. Quarles argued, based on the reactions by such leaders as Frederick Douglass and others, that the Washington D.C., African-American community was solidly opposed to Lincoln's plan. He alleged that "Lincoln and his colonization agent, James Mitchell, 'hand-picked' the five delegates and that four of them were recently freed 'contrabands,'" in order to have a pliable delegation who would support Lincoln.

Masur writes, "First, none of the delegates to Lincoln was newly freed from slavery. In fact, all five were members of Washington’s antebellum black elite and had strong ties to local religious and civic associations. Moreover, neither Mitchell nor Lincoln chose the delegates. Rather, the delegation emerged from institutions and decision-making processes that black Washingtonians had developed before the Civil War and put to use in the dynamic wartime context."

Masur notes that the five who were selected, far "from being sympathetic to the prospect of government-sponsored colonization in Central America, the delegates who met with Lincoln were inclined to oppose emigration. In fact, three of the five men were active in the Social, Civil, and Statistical Association (SCSA), a black organization that, just weeks before the meeting with Lincoln, had attempted to banish several emigration promoters from Washington."

While Masur notes that the delegation's chair, Edward Thomas, reversed course and chose to support Lincoln's plan to move blacks to Chiriquí, he was the lone member of the delegation who did so. "John F. Cook Jr., an SCSA member who became a member of the delegation to Lincoln, would later express concerns about 'taking the responsibility of answering the President on a matter in which more than four million of his people were concerned,'" Masur writes.

The part I quoted from McPherson's article in Phylon, actually came about originally at the organization meeting with African American civic groups who met to choose the delegation. McPherson likely got it from Quarles, who mentioned it in his book. Quarles' mention, however, came from a second, later vote on the same resolutions that passed unanimously.

Masur notes, "As their resolutions indicated, attendees thought the timing was wrong, and they did not feel comfortable being asked to speak on behalf of the nation’s African Americans. Significantly, John F. Cook Jr. and the delegation’s chair, Edward M. Thomas, were the very men who had proposed the resolutions denouncing the entire enterprise."

As for Thomas' reversal, Masur explains, "Edward Thomas, chair of the delegation, reversed course, telling Lincoln in a letter that the members of the delegation had entered the meeting “entirely hostile” to his ideas but had changed their minds after 'all the advantages were so ably brought to our views by you.' He proposed that two delegates visit Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, to discuss the proposal 'with our leading friends,' predicting that it would take only two weeks for such meetings to generate ample support for the president’s plan. Thomas used the pronoun 'we' in his letter, as if the entire delegation was in agreement, but he was the missive’s only signer." (emphasis mine). Given this fact, I will freely admit that I was wrong in saying the letter was merely a polite response to Lincoln. But I think this is a strong nail in this letter's rhetorical coffin.

As for Thomas, Masur writes, "It soon became clear, however, that among myriad doubts about Thomas’s integrity, members of the SCSA were most outraged by his support for Central American emigration. In the end, they were divided on how to deal with Thomas and decided not to expel him. Yet the trial itself suggests how disappointing his change of mind was for those in the SCSA who had hoped the Lincoln delegation would yield a unified expression of opposition to Lincoln’s proposal."

While Masur seems less inclined to paint the reaction of Douglass and others as representative of the entire black community, I believe that they came closer than those suggesting colonization. Lincoln's entire viewpoint is predicated on the notion, whether or not he accepted the humanity of the black race, that blacks were not citizens entitled to the same respect and dignity that white citizens enjoyed. Even if some may have wanted to leave America because they were weary of being made into the scapegoat for the nation's ills, a great majority, in my opinion, believed themselves to be citizens with all the rights and responsibilities of their white counterparts. Lincoln's plan was tone-deaf toward this belief.

Best
Rob

[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."

[Steve]

Here's a link to access the Masur article for free:

The African American Delegation to Abraham Lincoln: A Reappraisal

https://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites...rticle.pdf

[RJNorton]

David, I can save you a trip to the library. Here is the McPherson article:

[Rob Wick]

Quote: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.

Sorry David, but I don't have enough training in psychology to answer that. Maybe he knew he would be the lone signer and wanted to compensate.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(09-01-2023 03:13 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  David, I can save you a trip to the library. Here is the McPherson article:

Thanks, Roger. But I took off for the library before your post.

---

(09-01-2023 04:51 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote: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.

Sorry David, but I don't have enough training in psychology to answer that.
Best
Rob

Thanks, Rob. It's too late to ask him.

[Gene C]

I found this 20+ years old article by Doris Kearns Goodwin (author of Team of Rivals) might be of some relevance to this discussion,
or maybe not.

This from the Los Angeles Times of April 1, 2001 titled
"Abe Lincoln and the Truth Get Mugged At The Click Of A Mouse"
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-...story.html

I found the first sentence of her last paragraph interesting
"I have fought all my professional life against the tendency to label people in a derogatory way by juxtaposing their statements from the past against modern sentiments."

[David Lockmiller]

(09-02-2023 07:39 AM)Gene C Wrote:  This from the Los Angeles Times of April 1, 2001 titled
"Abe Lincoln and the Truth Get Mugged At The Click Of A Mouse"
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-...story.html

I could not log in without a subscription to the LA Times.

---

(09-01-2023 03:13 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  David, I can save you a trip to the library. Here is the McPherson article:

Thanks again, Roger, for posting this.

I would highly recommend reading this article by Professor James McPherson on the "Abolitionist and Negro Opposition to Colonization During the Civil War." (see Roger's post above)

It is concise, informative, and very-well written.

The discussion of the August 14, 1862 meeting at the White House begins at the bottom of page 394 and ends at the bottom of page 396. No mention is made of the "We" letter, as if the episode were a complete fiction.

The article ended with this summary of the situation:

"Lincoln, Blair, and others believed that the two races could never live together peacefully in freedom. They thought Negroes would prefer to emigrate rather than remain in America as second-class citizens. Abolitionists, on the other hand, not only believed that the races could live together peacefully in freedom, but that Negroes would prefer to remain in their native land and struggle their way upward to equality. In this they were right." (p. 399)

[Gene C]

Sorry David, it works fine for me.

[David Lockmiller]

(09-02-2023 12:03 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Sorry David, it works fine for me.

I am now a subscriber to the Los Angeles Times - $1 for six months subscription, cancel at any time.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN is a wonderful writer:

"The sentiments and words [the initial reporter] attributed to me were not simple distortions or words taken out of context. They were thoughts I had never expressed, sentiments I had never felt and were indeed opposite to the conclusions I had reached after five years of research."

As it relates to Lincoln, she wrote:

In reply to Douglas’ charge that he favored complete “Negro equality”--a sentiment that would have meant the end of his political career--Lincoln disclaimed any intention to overturn Illinois laws that prevented blacks from voting or sitting on juries. But then, taking a position well in advance of Northern opinion at the time, he argued that the black man should be entitled “to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence” and that “in the right to eat the bread . . . which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every living man.”

In his last public address, on April 11, 1865, Lincoln called on his countrymen to confer the right to vote to all black men who had received an education or served in the Union Army.

In the audience that evening, a young Southerner, John Wilkes Booth, was outraged by Lincoln’s talk of citizenship for blacks. Booth vowed: “That is the last speech he will ever make.”

She wrote of her work as a historian:

"I have fought all my professional life against the tendency to label people in a derogatory way by juxtaposing their statements from the past against modern sentiments."

I think the destruction and removal of statues is an unfortunate circumstance. What better way of beginning a truthful discussion of American history at the time of the Civil War? The numbers of men on both sides killed is estimated to be 625,000. How many soldiers were permanently injured in some manner for the rest of their lives? And, of what harm to their families? Soldiers on both sides fought for a belief.

The Grant bust and monument has not been replaced in Golden Gate Park. Someone regularly puts nail polish (or something like it) on the Lincoln statue in front of the San Francisco City Hall (cleaned regularly). And, how many people, in San Francisco and elsewhere, believe and know the entire truth regarding the "Dakota 38"?