A House Divided: Slavery and Emancipation in Delaware, 1638-1865

The Republican position as defined by Fisher promised benefit including financial gain, an end to the Civil War, and removal of all free blacks through colonization. Contrary to Democratic assertions regarding the high cost of emancipation, Fisher believed that abolition of slavery would save the national government the expense of the Civil War. It cost less to support compensated emancipation in Delaware, argued Fisher, than the expenditure for half a day of warfare. Were the national government to provide Delaware what it cost to fund the war for half a day, it “will not only pay for all the slaves at full prices, but will leave a margin to provide a fund for the removal…not only of the freed slaves, but the entire negro population, and colonize them in any country provided for them by the General Government.”