Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement by Phillip W. Magness & Sebastian N. Page

Author:Phillip W. Magness & Sebastian N. Page [Magness, Phillip W. & Page, Sebastian N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780826219091
Amazon: 0826219098
Publisher: University of Missouri
Published: 2011-02-14T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The Indefatigable James Mitchell

Despite his budgetary setbacks James Mitchell continued to press for the British emigration scheme’s revival in the United States. On November 24, 1864, he submitted his promised supplement to the report sought by the Senate in June, hoping that Congress would act to restore his funding in the approaching winter session. He asked Congress to directly appropriate the $5,000 “credit” requested by the African Civilization Society and expressed hope of resuming work on the British Honduras and Guiana projects, noting both colonies still desired labor.1

Mitchell enclosed a supplement, wherein he lashed out at the Chiriquí and Île à Vache contracts. These ventures ignored “the true interests of the emigrant” in pursuit of the “personal emolument of the parties” involved. Though he avoided naming Usher directly, he attributed the failure of both schemes to the actions of “sundry parties not responsible” for the Emigration Office’s work and beyond its jurisdiction. Should Congress resume colonization, he urged that it be placed in the hands of “reliable agencies” such as the British colonies or handled through direct dealings with the governments of Haiti and Liberia.2

The intervening months since Congress had repealed the colonization fund had done little to alleviate the raging animosity between Mitchell and Usher. On the contrary, Congress’s action had introduced new legal ambiguities. Mitchell asserted on a reasonably strong legal basis that even though his budget was repealed, he retained a commission to his office from Lincoln. This authorized him to make the supplemental report, which several senators had expected the previous June even as they voted to abolish the colonization fund.3 Usher’s retroactive suspension of Mitchell’s salary to January 1864 only further complicated the issue by tapping into an authorized portion of the fund, and it set the stage for a protracted legal battle.

Mitchell traveled west to visit his family during the summer’s congressional recess, briefly pausing to write Lincoln about his political troubles. The journey likely reignited his flair for Hoosier politics, which may have also been the original source of his bitterness with Usher. Both men were veterans of a tumultuous political battle in the 1850s over the future of free blacks in Indiana, one of the most “negrophobic” northern states, and may have crossed paths as part of rival Republican and Democratic factions.4 The emigration commissioner attributed Usher’s “foolish war on me” to “the instigation of the Arch-traytor [sic] Elwood Fisher years ago, and continued by the direction of an equally pure cliant [sic] A. W. Thompson,” the recipient of the original Chiriquí contract. Wrote Mitchell, “I respectfully and earnestly urge a change in the Department of the Interior” after the fall election, and he suggested that his own replacement come from the Midwest.5

Unbeknownst to the president, Mitchell was simultaneously plotting to oust Usher through the influence of his old friend Bishop Matthew Simpson. Even without Mitchell’s schemes, Usher’s job was imperiled by the arrival of Hugh McCulloch as the new treasury secretary at the outset of Lincoln’s second term. This appointment

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