Confederate Truths: Documents of the Confederate & Neo-Confederate Tradition from 1787 to the Present.

Texas Division Sons of Confederate Veterans Historian wants to ship all African Americans back to Africa

Confederate Veteran, Vol. 24 No. 12, December 1916, pp. 569. This is an article proposing to ship all African Americans to Africa. The Confederate Veteran was the official publication of the United Confederate Veterans, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Confederated Southern Memorial Association, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE HISTORIAN OF TEXAS DIVISION, U. C. V.

[The R. E. Lee Camp of Fort Worth, Tex., was the first to appoint a Historian, and Judge C. C. Cummings received the first appointment. Later the Texas Division, under Gen. K. M. Van Zandt, created this office, and Judge Cummings was the first appointee and has continued in the office. He was a member of Barksdale's Brigade, A. N. V., and was in the battles of his command from First Manassas till wound­ed at Gettysburg when serving as sergeant major of the 17th Mississippi Infantry.]

In 1816, a hundred years ago, the first movement began toward the return from America to Africa of the liberated slaves. In this year was formed the African Colonization Society under the initiative of Southern slaveholders. It was approved by Jefferson and materially advanced by Henry Clay, James Madison, and James Monroe. Many Northern philanthropists gave it moral and material aid. This society secured a concession of part of the province of Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, and in 1822 formed a colony and called it Liberia and the capital Monrovia, for President Monroe, who gave it valuable aid.

In 1847 the colony advanced to the dignity of a negro republic after the plan of the United States, but with the pro­viso that only negroes should be its officers. It is a coinci­dence that the Monroe Doctrine was promulgated in 1822, having for its aim the fostering care over the struggling republics to the south of us against unlawful encroachments on these by European powers.

Liberia has a coast line of about three hundred and fifty miles, the length of that of Texas on the Gulf of Mexico, and an area near that of the State of Mississippi, forty-three thousand square miles. Its terrain gradually ascends for about twenty miles till it reaches undulating uplands extend­ing some two hundred miles inland. The soil is fertile, well watered and timbered, and is very prolific in tropical fruits. Its principal exports are coffee, cacao, kola nuts, and many other tropical products. It has an even temperature, ranging from seventy-five to eighty-five degrees. Its government has adopted a system of grants to actual settlers for homestead purposes similar to that which so rapidly peopled the State of Texas.

Great Britain has during the world war now raging ac­quired the bulk of the German possessions in Africa, and the time is favorable for the United States to acquire additional territory there for African colonization. Our government has within its bounds eleven million negroes, all of whom are crowded into the thirteen original slave States, except about a million in the North, and race friction is yearly growing more frequent; local race segregation is being tried in many localities, which is but temporary.

In Liberia, as in all tribal communities, there was friction among the different tribes at first, which retarded its growth till 1894, when the several chiefs met at Monrovia and for­mulated a working basis of peace among themselves, which operated so as to secure confidence of capitalists abroad; and in 1911 Americans advanced the Liberian government two and a half million dollars, which righted its finances and placed it on a practical basis. Of course the bondholders will overlook their holdings to see that the investment is safe. This loan was on a population of 2,500,000, of which 18,000 are the descendants of American freed slaves.

History is philosophy teaching by example; and when we turn to the tenth chapter of Genesis we see where Father Noah got tired of trying to have his three sons live in peace together, and he then divided the known world among the three. To Ham he assigned Africa; to Shem, Asia; and to Japheth, the elder, he gave a double portion by the right of primogeniture, and Europe and the isles of the sea fell to his share.

This was the first attempt at race segregation. But race amalgamation followed between Shem and Ham on the plains of Mesopotamia. They built great Babylon and the Tower of Babel, and race friction followed and confusion of tongues, and they were dispersed. The second experiment of race segregation, being under divine guidance, yet obtains. We read that in the midst of this race mixture the divine voice called Abraham into a strange country and separated his seed from the rest as a witness for all time of the steady influence of the one God over all pagan gods. After undergoing bondage under Ham for a time about equal to the bondage of Ham with us, Shem came out into the Prom­ised Land. Now in the great war going on in Europe we expect to see the world again divided as old Father Noah did at first, and each son must return to his own—Shem back to the Promised Land, Ham back to Africa—all under the supervision of Japheth, whom Father Noah decreed should be so enlarged.

Another attempt of amalgamation was made by Japheth; and confusion ensued, as it ever must in race mixture. Japheth when he crossed over to his portion in Europe di­vided, and a part of him trekked westward over the Hima­layan Mountains of Western Asia, amalgamated with lower forms of life, stagnated into castes, and so remains to-day nonprogressive. The other part traveled to the northwest of Europe and has ever refused race mixture, but now stands out as the great white race which dominates the civilization of the world.

The South took up Ham as a savage and through slavery has lifted him to his feet as a man. If he is the man he is claimed to be, he will hearken to the cry of 150,000,000 of his kind and go over and help them.