"Almost from the commencement of this administration, the subject of deporting the colored race has been discussed."
Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol I, p. 150.
In April 1861, Lincoln met with Ambrose W. Thompson who proposed a plan for transporting Blacks to a Panamanian isthmus where he claimed his Chiriqui Improvement Company had a contract to mine coal. Welles and others called Thompson a hustler and critized the plan. Lincoln, however, adopted the idea and asked Secretary Welles to follow up.
"As early as May 1861, a great pressure was make upon me to enter into a coal contract with this company. The President was in earnest in the matter, wished to send the Negroes out of the country"
Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol I, p. 150.
The media called the place Linconia.
Welles looked into it and labelled it a "swindling speculation."
Undeterred, Lincoln then referred it to his Secretary of the Interior, Caleb Blood Smith. Smith was known to favor deportation.
As expected, Smith "made a skillful and taking report, embracing both coal and Negroes. Each was to assist the other. The Negroes were to be transported to Chiriqui to mine coal, for the Navy, and the secretary of the Navy was to make an immediate advance of $50,000 for coal not yet mined, -- nor laborers obtained to mine it, nor any satisfactory information or proof that there was decent coal to be mined." Welles and other members of the cabinet resisted, but "the President and Smith were persistent."
Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol I, p. 151.
He would have been glad to see relocation, but he never insisted on it.
Walt