Lincoln on equality:
“I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.”
Lincoln on inter-racial marriage:
“Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.”
Does that really sound like Lincoln?
It may be something somebody else (Rev. James Mitchell) wrote to Lincoln, but it's not something he said or wrote himself (even though you see it attributed to him a lot on fringe sites). To be sure, Mitchell (if he even said it) was Lincoln's commissioner for Negro colonization, but those words aren't Lincoln's.
Lincoln favored colonization or "self-deportation" to Africa, the Caribbean or Central America as an option for freed slaves for much of his life. So did most other moderates who had misgivings about slavery. The alternatives were support for slavery or joining the abolitionist fringe which was considered impossibly radical for a politician in most of the country.
Where Lincoln was on the issue at the end of his life is hard to say -- he was killed before he could tell us -- but he had evolved over the years, and most probably came to see coexistence, citizenship and (for some Blacks) suffrage as a worthy policy. Most of Lincoln's talk about colonization goes back to the time before the Emancipation Proclamation.
Apparently, your second quote was not from Lincoln.
From Abraham Lincoln Quarterly (VI, 3):
“On May 15, 1862, the Reverend James Mitchell of Indiana., later appointed Commissioner of Emigration, presented Lincoln with additional reasons why the Negroes should be colonized. Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people, he declared; as long as the Negroes continued to live with the whites they would constitute a threat to the national life. Family life might also collapse and the increase of “the mixed breed bastards,” might some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.”
Not a Lincoln fan. He was brilliant, but he oversaw events that led to the death of 500k+ Americans. This cannot be construed as a win.
I’m not aware of any single leader of the time who believed in equality as we understand it or in mixed marriage, so all you’re saying is that Lincoln was no different than everyone else.
Wait, how did he know we'd elect Obama in 2008?