Words Colliding: The Debate over Slavery and Black Exclusion in Nineteenth-Century America
Andrew F. Hammann
University of Virginia Press
In 1787, Thomas Jefferson declared that the United States was destined to become a nation free of slavery—and of its entire Black population. Following his cue, Henry Clay and other prominent politicians founded the American Colonization Society in 1816, launching the Black expatriation (“colonization”) movement, a political force that, over the next eighty years, promoted the removal, with federal support, of the nation’s Black population.
Throughout this time, the vast majority of Black Americans, Frederick Douglass among them, opposed this movement with great vigor and conviction, characterizing it as one of their greatest enemies, second only to slavery itself. Words Colliding offers the fullest account to date of this political debate, highlighting its dramatic impact on the national conversations regarding slavery and Black civil rights.