Colonization and Commerce, An Address before the Young Men’s Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati, Ohio, November 29, 1859

The issue of Slavery in the United States was approaching the point where the North and South would go to war. Frank Blair, who was anti-slavery, felt he found the way to a peaceful solution to the problem in the words of Thomas Jefferson, who had written "...The second object, and the most interesting to us, as coming home to our physical and moral characters, to our happiness and safety, is to provide an asylum, to which we can, by degrees, send the whole of that population (the negroes) from among us, and establish them under our patronage and protection, as a separate, free, and independent people, in some country and climate friendly to human life and happiness."

Mr. Blair, in the Colonization and Commerce address, presents his arguments in support of a program to have blacks and whites living apart and in freedom, yet cooperating in commerce. He briefly summarizes the program when he says "...I say, let us open up the tropics to our free blacks, and those who may hereafter become free; separate the races, anf give to each the climate which the Creator has adapted to the nature of each. I do not ask that they shall be forced asunder; only put it in their power to conform themselves to those laws of their nature which so plainly indicate that each race of mankind has a zone of its own, and this grand scheme can then be safely left to work itself out, and dissolve that unnaturaral connection fraught with such evil to two races of men…"

The booklet, which measures approximately 5 ¾ x 9 inches, contains 8 pages of double-column text. The pages are lightly tanned with text that is clear and easily read. The overall condition of the booklet is good.

The illustrations accompanying this description show the first and last pages of the booklet.

Francis Preston Blair Jr. (February 19, 1821 – July 8, 1875) was a United States Senator, a United States Congressman and a Union Major General during the Civil War. He represented Missouri in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and was active in preventing the State of Missouri from being absorbed into the Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil War. [Wikipedia]