Incorrect. Lincoln had the Haiti colonists returned after the government cancelled a contract with the man who had set up the colony. The reason for cancellation? The guy turned out to be a scam artist and was stealing the funds, not some "change of heart" by Lincoln.
Congress gave the coup de grace to colonization in July, 1864, by repealing all provisions of the legislation of 1862 appropriating funds for colonization purposes."
And Lincoln contested this. It's one of the reasons he asked his AG for an opinion to keep on Mitchell in November 1864 and continue his colonization.
[James M. McPherson
...No wonder that quote has so many falsehoods in it!
David H. Donald wrote of Lincoln, "the failure of his colonization schemes had taught him that African-Americans were, and would remain, a permanent part of the American social fabric.
Unsubstantiated speculation. Lincoln never said anything about the failure of colonization, never repudiated it, and by all reasonable evidence believed in it till the day he died.
He believed that the more intelligent blacks, especially those who served in the army, were entitled to the suffrage.
...in some cases, yes. But that's not the issue. The issue is colonization, and absolutely ZERO evidence exists to suggest that he ever repudiated his previous belief.
As Gabor Boritt wrote, "Colonization was dead and Lincoln did not mourn. He did not march backwards."
False. After some in congress and his administration tried to kill off the colonization offfice, Lincoln went to bat for Mitchell, its commissioner, to keep him on the job and in pursuit of colonization. That was November 1864 and the proof is irrefutable.
In 1864, John Hay recorded in his diary that Lincoln had "sloughed off" all these notions of colonization.
Must've changed his mind again then! Bates' letter shows Lincoln was pushing colonization in November of that same year.
Lincoln abandoned colonization schemes after 1862.
Prove it then by quoting Lincoln repudiating colonization.
NO! This is simply WRONG.
In his last cabinet meeting on the day he was shot, what Lincoln said was reported by Gideon Welles as follows:
Louisiana, he said, had framed and presented one of the best constitutions that had ever been formed. He wished they had permitted negroes who had property, or could read, to vote; but this was a question which they must decide for themselves. Yet some, a very few of our friends, were not willing to let the people of the States determine these questions, but, in violation of first and fundamental principles, would exercise arbitrary power over them. These humanitarians break down all State rights and constitutional rights.
Lincoln NEVER said any Black suffrage was an entitlement. He said it was his WISH. Elsewhere, he said he FAVORED it. But he emphatically denied that it was an entitlement.