earthly
power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing
institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves and send
them to Liberia--to their own native land. But a moment's reflection
would convince me that, whatever of high hope (as I think there is)
there may be in this, in the long run its sudden execution is
impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all
perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and
surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times
ten days. What then? Free them all and keep them among us as
underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I
think that I would not hold one in slavery at any rate, yet the point
is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free
them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own
feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that
those of the great mass of whites will not. Whether this feeling
accords with sound judgment is not the sole judgment, if indeed it is
any part of it."[5]

A few years later in a speech in Springfield, Lincoln said:[6] "The
enterprise is a difficult one, but where there is a will there is a
way, and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs
from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be
brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time favorable
to, or at least not against our interests to transfer the African to
his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the
task may be."[7] It is apparent, therefore, that before coming to the
presidency, Lincoln had quite definite views on the matter of
colonization. His interest arose not only with the good of the
freedmen in view, but with the welfare of the white race in mind, as
he is frank enough to state.

After being made President, the question of colonization arose again.
Large numbers of slaves in the Confederate States not only became
actually free by escape and capture but also legally free through the
operation of the confiscation acts. In this new condition, their
protection and care was to a considerable extent thrown upon the
government. To solve this problem Lincoln decided upon a plan of
compensated emancipation which would affect the liberation of slaves
in the border States, and he further considered the future of the
recently emancipated slaves and those to