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Collection Reference Number GLC05872
From Archive Folder Unassociated Civil War Documents 1865 
Title Benjamin F. Franklin to William Martin Dickson, discussing the creation of a separate state for former slaves
Date 15 August 1865
Author Butler, Benjamin F. (Benjamin Franklin) (1818-1893)  
Recipient Dickson, William Martin  
Document Type Correspondence
Content Description Butler, a Union General and Radical Republican, discusses Jacob Dolson Cox's views on creating separate states for former slaves. Informs Dickson, a Republican judge and political figure in Ohio, that "The supposition that the negro can be segregated on a given portion of this country apart from the white man in a separate community occupying a part of our Sea Board, whether as a dependency or an independency, to say nothing of constitutional objections is simply absurd ..." Discusses pride of race, the failings of Native American reservations in Georgia, and the views of Clement Laird Vallandigham, a former Ohio Congressman. Spells Dickson's name as Dixon.
Subjects Reconstruction  Union General  Slavery  African American History  US Constitution  Law  Segregation  Freemen  American Indian History  Copperheads  
People Butler, Benjamin Franklin (1818-1893)  Dickson, William M. (1827-1889)  Cox, Jacob Dolson (1828-1900)  Vallandigham, Clement L. (Clement Laird) (1820-1871)  
Place written Lowell, Massachusetts
Theme The American Civil War; African Americans; Slavery & Abolition; Law; Reconstruction
Sub-collection Papers and Images of the American Civil War
Additional Information Butler served as a United States Representative from Massachusetts 1867-1874 and 1877-1878, and as Governor of Massachusetts 1883-1884. Cox served as Governor of Ohio 1866-1868. Vallandigham served as a Democratic Representative from Ohio 1857-1862, and was banished to the Confederate States during the Civil War.
Copyright The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Module Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945
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