From CNN via MentalFloss.
1. Lincoln's first solution to slavery was a fiasco Early in his presidency, Abe was convinced that white Americans would never accept black Americans. "You and we are different races," the president told a committee of "colored" leaders in August 1862. "...But for your race among us there could not be war...It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated." Lincoln proposed voluntary emigration to Central America, seeing it as a more convenient destination than Liberia. This idea didn't sit well with leaders like Frederick Douglass, who considered colonization to be "a safety valve...for white racism." Luckily for Douglass (and the country), colonization failed spectacularly. One of the first attempts was on Île à Vache, a.k.a. Cow Island, a small isle off the coast of Haiti.
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Labels: civil war, U.S. history |
