Given the immense change in circumstances yes. A small number of slave owners supporting the return of a small number of freed slaves prior to the Civil War was one thing. Returning the entire 2 million plus work force immediately after the war is quite another, a war that cost the lives of many of the working class white Southerners.
This is where it's going wrong. I have no idea where you are getting this from.
The only "support" I can find for your thinking is maybe this (which doesn't indicate small anywhere):
Notable supporters of transporting freed blacks to Liberia included Henry Clay, Francis Scott Key, Bushrod Washington, and the architect of the U.S. Capitol, William Thornton—all slave owners. These "moderates" thought slavery was unsustainable and should eventually end but did not consider integrating slaves into society a viable option. So, the ACS encouraged slaveholders to offer freedom on the condition that those accepting it would move to Liberia at the society's expense. A number of slave owners did just that.
When the first settlers were relocated to Liberia in 1822, the plan drew immediate criticism on several fronts. Many leaders in the black community publicly attacked it, asking why free blacks should have to emigrate from the country where they, their parents, and even their grandparents were born. Meanwhile,
slave owners in the South vigorously denounced the plan as an assault on their slave economy.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...7/was_liberia_founded_by_freed_us_slaves.html
But check the date: 1822, before the Nat Turner rebellion:
But the scheme had some fans. Slave states like Maryland and Virginia were already home to a significant number of free blacks, and whites there—still reeling from Nat Turner's 1831 rebellion, which emancipated slaves had a hand in—formed local colonization societies. Thus encouraged, Maryland legislators passed a law in 1832 that required any slave freed after that date to leave the state and specifically offered passage to a part of Liberia administered by the Maryland State Colonization Society. However, enforcement provisions lacked teeth, and many Marylanders forgot their antipathy to free blacks when they needed extra hands at harvest time. There is no evidence that any freed African-American was forcibly sent to Liberia from Maryland or anywhere else.
And:
In the 1830s, the movement became increasingly dominated by slave owners who wanted Liberia to absorb the free blacks of the South. Slaves freed from slave ships were sent here instead of their country of origin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-Africa_movement#Liberia
You may say - ahhh but surely that second quote proves they were willing to forget discrimination come hard times when work needed to be done. Well yes,
but it still is nowhere near proof that they'd be willing to forget about it in perpetuity,
especially once
all blacks were free and given "equal" rights.
It's laughable how a man dead for over 150 years could see what political correctness and liberals seem intent on saying is untrue:
Henry Clay, a congressman from Kentucky who was critical of the negative impact slavery had on the southern economy, saw the movement of blacks as being preferable to emancipation in America, believing that "unconquerable prejudice resulting from their color, they never could amalgamate with the free whites of this country. It was desirable, therefore, as it respected them, and the residue of the population of the country, to drain them off".[16] Clay argued that because blacks could never be fully integrated into U.S. society due to "unconquerable prejudice" by white Americans, it would be better for them to emigrate to Africa
Oh, come on. You're actually serious about this? You're suggesting that a group of farmers are going to willingly pay enormous sums of money to make labour more expensive for them while also reducing their social power? All this while recovering from the most destructive war the country had ever seen? I have a hard time believing that you're this thick.
You won't be banned for this post, but I suggest you research your arguments more carefully and come back with a cool head.
- Why would the farmers have to fork out.
- What are you talking about by "reducing their social power".
You guys are also acting as if the "southern farmers" had the keys to the castle but are conveniently forgetting the north. The fact is if blacks wanted to go back, they would have been helped by the north and south in moderation. Black's didn't, opposed colonisation and chose to remain so let's stop the revisionism in trying to blame the white guys yet again. The argument that it would have crippled the southern farms is weak since we aren't talking about a mass migration that sends all blacks back in a matter of weeks. If a plan was introduced to repatriate blacks gradually, whilst sustaining southern productivity as replacements were found are you telling me the former slave owners would
still not jump on board?
Let's re-evaluate:
- Blacks want to go to their ancestral home in Africa
- The north agrees that they have a right to this
- The south fear freed blacks and so also agree
- Southern former slave owners object because they need the help and so stop the whole process.
Really guys?????
Let's start treating people equally and calling out the right people when the situation warrants it. For Gods sake non-whites aren't babies and don't require this nannying. My American cousins didn't return simply because they didn't want to leave America for Africa and not because they were held back by whites.
@TenEightyOne Analogy doesn't make sense since CDs aren't human.
