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I am of the opinion that a Major General of the Union would be a man of high character and not given to lying. (Military men of this period valued honor. ) I am of the opinion that if that is what the man said he heard, then that is what he heard.

Now you can chose to believe one of two things. You can believe that Major General Butler was a liar, or you can believe that he heard Lincoln say what he claims; Sentiments Lincoln expressed for most of his adult life.

Joe, do you see how this -- uh, character -- operates? Butler wrote his book over twenty years after the war and published it almost 30 years after the war and one year before he died.

Butler is widely regarded as unreliable. In Butler's book, Lincoln is forever asking Butler what he should do with the freed slaves and Butler is forever telling Lincoln what to do. According to Ben, he was the one who first advised Lincoln to recruit African-American troops.

Butler also says Lincoln offered him the Vice Presidency through Simon Cameron. Butler has the kind of outsized ego one expects in third party presidential candidates (Greenback Party, 1884), and the unreliability one finds in politicians who frequently change their party and their views, moving from one side of the political spectrum to the other.

In Butler's account of his meeting with Lincoln, Butler has Lincoln lavishly praising him for his military career, which was lackluster, and his "friendship" for the black "race," and asking him about "sending all the blacks away."

The conversation has a funny, unlikely feeling that doesn't fade when Butler starts lecturing Lincoln about shipping off the US Colored Troops to build a canal through what's now Panama, something that was a major topic in the 1880s, but much less talked about earlier. It's all just too much to credit.

But for Diogenes, Butler is a "man of honor" so we have to believe what he says. Lincoln is the devil incarnate, so we have to believe the worst of him.

Diogenes stacks the deck. He forms his opinions in advance and the conclusions are already implied in his assumptions. If you don't start out with his assumptions you don't reach his conclusions. How much longer will we have to put up with his garbage?

x: "Joe, do you see how this -- uh, character -- operates?
Butler wrote his book over twenty years after the war and published it almost 30 years after the war and one year before he died.
Butler is widely regarded as unreliable...."

Yes, and I think we can dispense with Butler's account as being irrelevant, considering that Congress with Lincoln's approval in July 1864 withdrew its authorization of $600,000 to pay for colonization of freedmen.
By that time Lincoln had spent only $38,000 of the $600,000 authorized and had clearly given up on the idea.

So whatever polite conversation Butler may, or may not, have had with Lincoln it certainly did not represent any change in official government policy or actions.

Again, the important point to remember about voluntary colonization is that it was indeed official US government policy from 1819 onward, but that it proved very expensive and prone to failures.
Lincoln tried it again in 1862 but again it failed and by 1864 both Lincoln and Congress gave up on it.

And now, for those devilishly little sneaky minds like, say, DiogenesLamp's, let me explain why Lincoln utterly gave up on the idea of colonizing freed African-Americans to Liberia or the Caribbean.
It's the same reason John Wilkes Boot murdered Lincoln!!

< sarcasm > That sneaky some-beach Lincoln figured out freed blacks in the USA would vote Republican, and instantly all thoughts of colonization vaporized from Lincoln's mind.
That dastard "Ape" Lincoln </sarcasm> wanted all blacks kept in this country so they would vote Republican.
Of course, Lincoln could never in his wildest imagination think freed African-Americans would eventually vote for the political party of the Slave Power, Democrats!

Joe, do you see how this -- uh, character -- operates? Butler wrote his book over twenty years after the war and published it almost 30 years after the war and one year before he died.

Well obviously this proves everything he wrote is false.

Butler is widely regarded as unreliable.

Report nasty things about people's venerated President, and the long knives will come out for you. Of course a bunch of people are going to call him unreliable, because they don't want the damage to their narrative that accepting Butler's statements would cause.

Cui Bono?

But for Diogenes, Butler is a "man of honor" so we have to believe what he says. Lincoln is the devil incarnate, so we have to believe the worst of him.

Well, one is a Military Officer during a time in which "Honor" was supposed to be a big thing, and the other is a corporate lawyer turned Politician, and well known for being willing to pull some dirty tricks in his politics.

As a lawyer, Lincoln would argue one side of a case in the morning, and then argue the very opposite side of a case in the afternoon. A Judge once asked him how he could square changing his position 180 degrees from the morning to the afternoon.

He replied something to the effect that in the morning he thought he was correct, but by the afternoon he realized the other position was more correct.

He was a charmer, though accounts of his duplicity in various situations are not hard to find.