Originally posted by JAD_333
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If one sets aside the prejudices of the day, the specter of several million slaves (never mind their race), without pot to piss in, entering the institutions of the day as free men presents one hell of a problem. Add back into the equation the racial prejudices of the day, and the problem becomes exponentially larger. No wonder some thinkers of the day advocated sending the former slaves out of the country. Poof, problem solved. Of course, it was pie in the sky.
Not at all. Those were the questions being asked by fair-minded politicians and thinkers of the day--fair-minded as fair-minded would have been thought of then.
I assume by the "questions in a planters handbook" you mean all the lame arguments for continuing slavery, why the negro is inferior to whites, that segregating the races is God's wish, etc.
It's true that the people who advocated colonization were very much influenced by these arguments, but not necessarily because they themselves believed in them. The evidence is they believed a good deal of strife would emanate from those arguments, And they could see no better way around it than colonization. In other words, their view was, if two cats are going to get in a fight, take one to the next county.
It's true that the people who advocated colonization were very much influenced by these arguments, but not necessarily because they themselves believed in them. The evidence is they believed a good deal of strife would emanate from those arguments, And they could see no better way around it than colonization. In other words, their view was, if two cats are going to get in a fight, take one to the next county.
That's a red herring. The subject of this thread is the colonization movement. The contradiction between the ideal of freedom and the institution of slavery is well established. I don't see anyone arguing to the contrary.
What's going on here? Shoot first and ask questions later. I said to wit that liberals in general, many of whom favored colonization, do not always think through the practical aspects of what they propose. [/quote]
No first you link abolintionists to liberals in th emodern sense then you used the term all
Put yourself in their shoes and allow yourself to see things as they saw them. They did not foresee all the events that came later. Punditry was as bad then as it is now. At least, they were half right. The races did have enormous difficulty assimilating. There is ample evidence of that now. They were, however, wrong that it could not be done, and, therefore, wrong about colonization being the only solution.
What do you mean by equality? To me, race doesn't enter into whether one man is equal to another. I start from the position that we're all equal under the law. After that, I have no other claim to equality with anyone. Then it becomes a matter of personal compatibility, interests, likes, dislikes, character, integrity, accomplishment, behavior, manners, civility--and all those other things you look for in your friends, acquaintances, workers, and employers. Blacks today, sometimes with good reason, see lack of social or political acceptance by whites as a sign they are not accepted as equals because of race. While they may be right in some cases, they are not right in all. There are other reasons not to accept someone socially. So, yeah, we have a way to go yet, but we've also come a long way.
One of the self-serving sides of campaign politics, but not altogether bad, because at least the party seeking votes of a minority to win has to deliver something. It's progress by tiny steps, but progress nonetheless.
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