ONSERVATIVE COURSE.

Mr. Lincoln had always been a firm believer in the scheme of African
colonization; and in his message of December, 1861, he recommended
a provision for colonizing the slaves set free by the influence of
war. From the slave States which had remained loyal to the Union
he was willing to accept slaves in lieu of the direct tax, according
to some mode of valuation that might be agreed upon, and he was
anxious that adequate provision should be made for their settlement
in some place or places with a climate congenial to them. But the
experiment with the manumitted negroes of the District, which was
made in compliance with this recommendation of the President and
in deference to his personal wishes, frequently and earnestly
expressed, demonstrated the impracticability of the plan. Colonization
could be effected only by the forcible removal of the colored
people, and this would have been a more cruel violation of their
natural rights than a continuance of the slavery in which they were
born. If free choice between the two conditions had been offered,
nine-tenths, perhaps even a larger proportion of the slaves, would
have preferred to remain in their old homes. In an economic point
of view the scheme was indefensible. We were at the time the only
country with undeveloped agricultural resources in warm latitudes,
that was not engaged in seeking labor from all quarters of the
world. The Colonization scheme deliberately proposed to strip the
United States of patient, faithful laborers, acclimated to the
cotton and sugar fields of the South, and capable of adding great
wealth to the nation. Colonization would deprive us of this much
needed labor, would entail vast expense in the deportation of the
negroes, and would devolve upon this country, by a moral responsibility
which it could not avoid, the protection and maintenance of the
feeble government which would be planted on the shores of Africa.
The Liberian experiment, honorable as it was to the colored race,
and successful as it had proved in establishing civilization in
Africa, had not attained such material prosperity as would justify
the United States in the removal of millions of its population to
a remote country where there was no demand for labor.

Mr. Lincoln's course on the Slavery question at that period of his
Administration was steadily and studiously conservative. He had
checked the Secretary of War (Mr. Cameron) in the issuing of an