Slavery
Colonization Pamphlet Suggests African Americans Should Pay for Own Emancipation

[SLAVERY.] John McDonogh, Self-Emancipation. A Successful Experiment on a Large Estate in Louisiana. Tract republished from the Colonization Journal (February 1862). With ownership signature of “W. P. Fessenden / U S Senate.” 24 pp., 5.5" x 9". Bound with string, slight edge soiling; very good.

This controversial tract is a reprint from the Colonization Journal of February 1862 suggesting that enslaved African-Americans might lighten “the burthen of emancipation” by “becoming their own redeemers by peaceful industry in one generation.” It reprints an 1842 letter by New Orleans slaveowner John McDonogh who allowed his slaves to purchase their own freedom and passage to Liberia through labor. This copy belonged to William P. Fessenden (1806-1869), U.S. Senator from Maine, who served as President Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury from July 1864 to March 1865.

Excerpts:
“While the subject of compensating owners of slaves for such as shall be emancipated by the Act of State Legislatures, which involves property represented by several hundred millions, to be assumed as a national burthen, is under discussion, the following narrative of an experiment made by Mr. John McDonogh, and furnished by him for the New Orleans Bulletin, about the middle of July, 1842, sheds light upon the question of special value.”

“On this plan any State might, by enacting a law securing to every slave the right to purchase his liberty at a fair valuation, as is done in Cuba, under Spanish law, to this day, develop the same industry and self-reliant labor, so that really the burthen of emancipation would not be felt. The slave population might become their own redeemers by peaceful industry in one generation.”

John McDonogh (1779-1850) was born in Baltimore and became a merchant there, but soon relocated to New Orleans. In 1818, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate. After he lost the election, he left New Orleans and established the town of McDonoghville across the Mississippi River. He became reclusive but spent much time and effort on vast land holdings in Louisiana and elsewhere. As a slaveholder, he devised a plan in 1822 by which his slaves could buy their freedom in about fifteen years. McDonogh was also active in the American Colonization Society. He never married and had no children. At his death, he left most of his fortune to the cities of Baltimore and New Orleans to build schools for poor children, both black and white. Heirs contested the will, and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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