



Produced by David Widger





                          THE GREAT CONSPIRACY

                         Its Origin and History

                                 Part 5

                                   BY

                               JOHN LOGAN




                             CHAPTER XVIII.

                       FREEDOM PROCLAIMED TO ALL.


While mentally revolving the question of Emancipation--now, evidently
"coming to a head,"--no inconsiderable portion of Mr. Lincoln's thoughts
centered upon, and his perplexities grew out of, his assumption that the
"physical difference" between the Black and White--the  African and
Caucasian races, precluded the idea of their living together in the one
land as Free men and equals.

In his speeches during the great Lincoln-Douglas debate we have seen
this idea frequently advanced, and so, in his later public utterances as
President.

As in his appeal to the Congressional delegations from the Border-States
on the 12th of July, 1862, he had held out to them the hope that "the
Freed people will not be so reluctant to go" to his projected colony in
South America, when their "numbers shall be large enough to be company
and encouragement for one another," so, at a later date--on the 14th of
August following--he appealed to the  Free men themselves to help
him found a proposed <DW64> colony in New Granada, and thus aid in the
solution of this part of the knotty problem, by the disenthrallment of
the new race from its unhappy environments here.

The substance of the President's interesting address, at the White
House, to the delegation of <DW52> men, for whom he had sent, was thus
reported at the time:

"Having all been seated, the President, after a few preliminary
observations, informed them that a sum of money had been appropriated by
Congress, and placed at his disposition, for the purpose of aiding the
colonization in some country of the people,