Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 10

2. James Mitchell, Letter on the Relation of the White and African Races in the United States, Showing the Necessity of the Colonization of the Latter (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1862). (28 p.)

Open letter to President Abraham Lincoln dated May 18, 1862, in which the author advocates the removal of African Americans to central Africa, particularly Liberia. “Our danger in the future,” he argues, “arises from the fact that we have 4,500,000 persons, who, whilst among us, cannot be of us—persons of a different race, forming necessarily a distinct interest; the germ of a distinct political power, not now fully disclosed, but to be disclosed in future ages; and from the fact that the government applied to those people is not republicanism, but anti-republicanism, having many of the imperial marks about it, the toleration of which has educated many of our people to look with favor on a radical change of our republican institutions.” (The collection has another copy of this letter [Volume 70, No. 2].)