DS, signed “H. Clay,” one page, 11 x 8.5, January 1, 1847. In full: “Office of the Colonization Society. This certifies that Archibald W. Hyde, Esq. is a member for life, of the American Colonization Society.” In very good condition, with several vertical light folds and bends, scattered wrinkles, a few scattered holes along the left side, light toning, and a chipped bottom right corner.
A dark part of US history, the American Colonization Society was organized in 1816 and sought the voluntary removal of US blacks to Africa, or whatever place the US Congress thought fit. The society was popular with antebellum Northerners, with its membership including clergy, college presidents, and politicians of all parties. Among the officers of the society over the years were Clay—a long-time supporter of colonization—as well as Daniel Webster, William H. Seward, Francis Scott Key, and Winfield Scott.
The society was approaching its pinnacle around the time Clay added his signature to this document, with colonization readily endorsed in the 1850s by several states as well as by President Abraham Lincoln! Even some black leaders came to see removal as the only alternative, however undesirable, to eternal repression, poverty, and mob violence in the North. An astonishing piece of pre-Civil War history whose message, Clay once said, satisfied ‘a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children, whose ancestors have been torn from her by the ruthless hand of fraud and violence.’ Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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