Lincoln as Abolitionist (9)

Colonization was largely irrelevant in practice in the slavery controversies of the 1850s. But Dumond's description of the appeal of colonization gives a excellent feel for how many whites viewed slavery and race:

It is not difficult to understand why men continued to raise their voices in support of colonization in spite of its failure, even though less inclined to open their purses. It was not easy to choose between the two extremes in the slavery controversy. A man might not subscribe to the positive-good argument of the slaveholders and still be unwilling to endorse a program of unconditional immediate emancipation. Colonization presented the easy way out for that individual. It was a rationalization for the lazy intellect, a sedative for the guilty conscience, a refuge for the politician and the professional man. Therein lies much of the organization's [the Colonization Society's] historical importance. Abolitionists claimed that the only way to abolish slavery was to do it before proceeding to the task of elevating the race; that any consideration of particular plans for emancipation allowed the discussion to be drawn away from the main question and all sorts of extraneous issues to be introduced; that all talk of a preparatory process for freedom was absurd because the atmosphere of slavery was uncongenial to the development of individual traits essential for freedom; that only as a free man enjoying a full measure of civil rights could the Negro cultivate his mind, accumulate property, discipline his habits, and assume responsibilities so essential to correct social attitudes. The colonizationists could admit all these things, but hold that elevation of the Negro as a free man in the United States was as utterly impracticable as his elevation in slaery, and, therby, indirectly support and perpetuate an insitution admittedly wrong on moral grounds and inconsistent with the fundamental pricnples of American democracy.