Was President Lincoln's First Solution to Slavery Voluntary Emigration?

Joined
Nov 26, 2016
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central NC
According to an article written by journalist Eric Johnson, President Lincoln was convinced early in his presidency that white Americans would never accept black Americans. "You and we are different races," the president told a committee of "colored" leaders in August 1862. "...But for your race among us there could not be war...It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated."

Johnson’s article states that Lincoln proposed a “voluntary emigration” to Central America, seeing it as a more logical destination than Liberia. Frederick Douglass (among others) did not agree with this plan because he viewed colonization as "a safety valve...for white racism."

One of the first attempts at colonization was on Île à Vache, also known as Cow Island, a small island off the coast of Haiti. This island was owned by a land developer named Bernard Kock. A smallpox outbreak on the boat ride to the island affected hundreds of black colonizers and they were abandoned on the island with no housing prepared for them.The smallpox survivors later found the soil on Cow Island was too poor for farming and in January 1864, the Navy rescued them.

Once Île à Vache failed, Lincoln supposedly never spoke of colonization again. Is this article accurate? If so, why do you think Lincoln changed his mind? Did the Civil War prompt this or do you think Lincoln's opinion on this evolved over time?
 
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