The Great Emancipator was almost the Great Colonizer: Newly released documents show that to a greater degree than historians had previously known, President Lincoln laid the groundwork to ship freed slaves overseas to help prevent racial strife in the U.S.
Just after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Lincoln authorized plans to pursue a freedmen's settlement in present-day Belize and another in Guyana, both colonial possessions of Great Britain at the time, said Phillip W. Magness, one of the researchers who uncovered the new documents.
Michael Burlingame, chair of Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said there are two ways to view Lincoln's public support for colonization.
One side holds that it shows Lincoln could not envision a biracial democracy, while the other stance — which Mr. Burlingame subscribes to — says Lincoln's public actions were "the way to sugarcoat the emancipation pill" for Northerners.
"So many people in the North said we will not accept emancipation unless it is accompanied by colonization," said Mr. Burlingame, adding that Lincoln himself had always made clear colonization would be voluntary and nobody would be forced out of the United States.
Burlingame's comments were featured in a February 9, 2011, article by the Washington Times.
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