" So said Mr. Lincoln in one of
his debates with Douglas.
"I cannot make it better known than it already is," said Mr. Lincoln
in a message to Congress, dated December 1, 1862, "that I strongly
favor colonization."
At Lincoln's instance Congress appropriated several large sums of
money--then much needed in warlike operations--for colonizing
experiments. One of these has a curious and somewhat pathetic history.
A sharper by the name of Koch, having worked himself into the
confidence of the President and some other good people, got them to
buy from him an island in the West Indies, called Ile a'Vache, which
he represented to be a veritable earthly paradise. Strangely enough,
it was wholly uninhabited, and therefore ready for the uses of a
colony. Several hundred people--colored, of course--were collected,
put aboard a ship, and dumped upon this unknown land. It will
surprise no one to learn that pretty soon these people, poisoned by
malaria, stung by venomous insects and reptiles, and having scarcely
anything to eat, were dying like cattle with the murrain. In the end a
ship was sent to bring back the survivors.
Nevertheless, the kind-hearted President did not give up the idea.
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