Replies

DoodleDawg: "Lincoln supported colonization all his life; many people did.
To say that Lincoln supported deportation at all, much less at the end of his life, is a gross exaggeration of the facts."

Thanks for that clarification.
IIRC, Jefferson's plans included mandatory deportation of freed-slaves.
Lincoln's idea was strictly voluntary emigration of freed-slaves who wished to leave.

I think it's fair to say that even in 1860, most people could not imagine former slaves living peacefully with their former slave-masters.
Hence plans for deportation or voluntary emigration.

IIRC, Jefferson's plans included mandatory deportation of freed-slaves.

Mandatory deportation AND billing the Northern states for the costs.

I think it's fair to say that even in 1860, most people could not imagine former slaves living peacefully with their former slave-masters.

I think from Lincoln's standpoint viz-a-viz colonization was that blacks in the U.S. faced a future where they were not considered citizens and where the legal discrimination and lack of rights that they endured in the North was even more prevalent in the South. And end to slavery would just make things worse. Why not assist blacks in carving out their own life free from the burdens placed on them in the U.S.? Where they could run their own show? And where really was he wrong?