The Future of the Colored Race in America / Being an article in the Presbyterian quarterly review of July, 1862

by William Aikman

The war will decide the question of slavery, and with it alter the whole form of society at the South which rests upon it. But one civilization cannot pass away and leave a vacuum; one state of society cannot cease and have no other in its palace. It is only changes, not new creations which take place in the social world; one civilization gives place to another; society passes from one state into another . We are, then, on the eve of a mighty change, perhaps the greatest ever seen in the world before. That it can or could take place without an awful struggle, pangs which are the birth-thores of a nation, let no one imagine; that it will be done in a few brief months is impossible. While we write, victories have just been gained, the great city of the South has passed into the hands of our army, and men begin to predict the speedy downfall of the rebellion; but, alas, we cannot felicitate ourselves with any such prospect. The great class which has made the war to maintain its existence, will not consent to die thus; every element of human nature in its fallen form is against it. It will yield to nothing but simply irresistible force, it will die only as it is killed. We confess, as we look over the whole ground and weigh well as we can the origin and caused of this gigantic war, to a feeling, not of despondency or uncertainty, for we believe that God will one day bring it to a happy end, but of heart-sorrow and care, even as a woman has sorrow and foreboding at the inevitable agony ere a man is born into the world. To lift twelve millions of men to a new better place, to open before them a good and happy future, instead of certain prospective woe and final dissolution, is a work worth the tears and groans of a nation, and they can well afford to be patient till the time has come. At present let not one's heart fail him if the horizon grows dark and hope seems at times blotted out; let him remember well what the meaning of the strife is, that it is no accident, but the death-struggle of a civilization two hundred years old, and based on all the worst and strongest elements of human nature. It can have no easy death.

Taking it for granted, then, that a great change is about to take place in the social state of the South, and taking it for granted that slavery on which it is based must, under the pressure of the forces which are bearing upon it, pass sooner or later away, a point which we are not disposed just now to consider even debatable, a great question comes up, What shall be the future condition of the colored race in this land? How shall the problem be solved? What shall be done with the slave? Hasty and inconsiderate persons may find ready answers, but it seems to us that just now there is no question of so great intricacy, and certainly no one of equal moment to which an American can address himself. We propose in the remainder of this article to discuss it. It is not a subject on which it is well to dogmatize; we have learned that there is room for a very wide diversity of opinion; the most that any one can hope to do is by discussion to endeavor to elicit light. After all the Providence of God will do the work; it is for us to be abreast of that Providence, ready to accept the trust and do the work which it assigns us.

We have dwelt thus long on the causes, and what we consider to be the true meaning of the war, because only by a right apprehension of them can we be prepared to deal with this great question. Those who are at the head of the government appreciate it most fully, and the President in his message frankly intimates that the only true hope of a lasting settlement of our national difficulties must be found in the ultimate emancipation of the blacks. But aware of the objections which must arise to the setting free of four millions of slaves and their remaining in the country, he proposes that a system of colonization shall be inaugurated by which they may be removed. Emancipation with colonization in lands provided for the freed slaves, is the scheme.

Without dealing with this proposition of the President in detail, let us look at the state of the case, and ask, Is colonization possible; and if possible; it is necessary, or even desirable? By colonization we mean, of course, the removal or deportation of the blocks to another country. We do not mean emigration; that is an entirely different thing.

We may ask at the outset, Have we a right to send out of the country the emancipated slaves? However it may have failed to be his country, this is his home, and by what law of morality shall you compel him to abandon not only his, but his father's and his ancestor's home? It is his by a line of descent stretching, in most cases, far back of theirs who talk so glibly of his colonization: and after, by a great act of justice, you have raised him from chattelhood into citizenship, and have given him a country, by what rule of right do you propose at the same time to banish him from it? A right-minded man will hesitate before he leaves the feelings of four millions of hearts out of his calculations. It is, we think, an element somewhat to be considered, and yet one utterly ignored by the most of those who talk on this subject. If it be answered, the colonization is to be voluntary, they only going who choose to go, we have only to say that that is not the true meaning of the terms, nor what is by common consent understood by it. If merely emigration is intended, and it is made no part of the scheme of emancipation, the case is altered radically. But of this more by and by.

Of the possibility of the deportation of the freedmen, a thoughtful man will have many doubts. The shipment of the natural increase for one year of our present slave population, sixty thousand, (60,000,) would tax the energies and resources of the nation to an extent which they who talk of it have not very fully measured. And then the original 4,000,000 remain. To those who have been accustomed to advocate the removal of the colored race from this country, we recommend a matter-of-fact calculation in ships and money and time. It will be both interesting and profitable; possibly it will impart some new ideas on the matter. For ourselves, we may say that we deem the proposition for the deportation of a race of four millions, with a yearly increase of sixty thousand, a wild dream, one of the emptiest that a sane man cares to entertain. The history of the race has never known such a thing; it has seen the emigration of millions, but the sending of them never.

But passing this, is the colonization of the colored race in this country desirable or necessary? For the entering upon a work so gigantic, even were it possible, there ought to be reasons the most imperative, absolute, and pressing. Mere opinions, theories, or prejudices, will not be sufficient; the demand for it must be made to appear with sunlight clearness.

What are these reasons? To us it does not seem easy to exhibit them. It is easy to declaim about the inferiority of the race, the impossibility of their ever living on an equality with the white race, their lack of ability to support themselves, and the like, but in the end it is very difficult to perceive the logicals consecutiveness of the argument. The inferiority of a race can hardly be shown to be a valid reason for its banishment from the presence of the superior, and by its power; the inability of a people to care for or to elevate themselves, does not seem a precisely good argument for sending them to a new land, and to a naked dependence on their own resources; the invincible prejudice of the white does not at once give a very potent, at least a very just reason why the black should be expatriated.

We will not assert it, but there is good cause to suspect that while in the minds of perhaps the majority of those who for a few years past have been active supporters of the colonization scheme, the good of the black and of Africa have been prominent motives, yet it had its birth and its chief support in the way in which it bore upon the interests of slavery. The presence of free blacks among slaves is an element of weakness in the system, and though it may not have been openly avowed, yet there is too much reason to suspect that colonization was intended vastly more for them than for freed slaves. It was a scheme to strengthen slavery, and it ceased to elicit sympathy or generous support so soon as it appeared to give no promise of that result.

Asking the reasons for colonization, we apprehend that when the argument is pressed, it will be found to terminate, if on any thing substantial, upon the benefit which it will confer on the black race. Without volunteering the details of that argument, which, indeed, we do not profess to see clearly, we may say that there is at least a preliminary question, whether or not that end cannot be better attained without colonization than with it? Is it not possible better to elevate and to do good to the colored race in this than in any other land to which they may be sent?