Mr. Jefferson believed in the colonization
of negroes to Africa, and the substitution of free
white labor in their place.
He wrote to John Lynch, of Virginia,
in 1811, as follows: “Having long ago made
up my mind on this subject (colonization), I have no
hesitation in saying that I have ever thought it the
most desirable measure which could be adopted, for
gradually drawing off this part of our population
most advantageously for themselves as well as for us.
“Going from a country possessing
all the useful arts, they might be the means of transplanting
them among the inhabitants of Africa, and would thus
carry back to the country of their origin, the seeds
of civilization, which might render their sojournment
and sufferings here a blessing in the end to that
country.”
Many other eminent men have shared
the same opinion, and not a few prominent leaders
among the Afro-American people.
But it is now an impossibility.
The American negro is in America to stay. The
ever pressing problem of his relationship to the white
man involves questions of education, labor, politics
and religion, which will take infinite patience, insight,
forbearance and wisdom to settle justly.