Abraham Lincoln, “Second Annual Message” (“State of the Union”) December 1, 1862
The proposed emancipation would shorten the war, perpetuate peace, insure this increase of population, and proportionately the wealth of the country. With these we should pay all the emancipation would cost, together with our other debt, easier than we should pay our other debt without it. …
I can not make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization; and yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against free colored persons remaining in the country which is largely imaginary, if not sometimes malicious.
A month before he formally issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, President Lincoln made this proposal for gradual, compensated emancipation, with his stated preference for resettling freed slaves in another country (“Colonization.”). The plan, of course, was never realized.
Citation: Abraham Lincoln: “Second Annual Message,” December 1, 1862. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29503.
