The PIMP did not fire that piece of human garbage named Mitchell, did he??? Indeed he did not. In fact, as late as November 30, 1864 he was fighting against his own Sec. of the Interior (who contended at the time that Congress had not renewed the position) to preserve Mitchell's job. On that day Attorney General Bates responded to a now-lost request by Lincoln for an opinion permitting Mitchell to stay on board. This directly contradicts the frequent claim that Lincoln had a "change of heart" about colonization around 1863. It also gives support to the account by Benjamin Butler in early 1865 of the two discussing continued colonization policies. Idolaters like Wlat do not like to admit it but Lincoln favored colonization to his dying day.
Scores of historians have spent countless hours trying to discredit Butler and his story. But since it is impossible to prove a negative, and since, as other historians have pointed out, Butler's account is "full and circumstantial" and there was no reason for him to lie, these efforts have proved fruitless. More to the point, Lincoln said the same thing about colonization and his fear of Black violence to others (see page 615). Based on these and other factors, some scholars, Ludwell H. Johnson and Herman Belz among them, have concluded that there is no reason to doubt the Butler account. "If Butler's recollection is substantially correct, as it appears to be," George Fredrickson said, "then one can only conclude that Lincoln continued to his dying day to deny the possibility of racial harmony and equality in the United States and persisted in regarding colonization as the only real alternative to perpetual race conflict"
Forced Into Glory, Lerone Bennett, Jr., p. 617