A Lincoln future history?

I've just started a novel that jumps back and forth between the present and the
ACW. I think its going to be a secret history. In it a diary of Lincoln's is stolen in April 1862, probably by Copperheads or out and out CSA supporters.

In it Lincoln says he wants to free all the slaves and send them out of the country to Africa or wherever.

Suppose Lincoln had actually wanted this, assuming he did not, and it had come out right then?

Who has the most to gain CSA supporters, abolitionists, Copperheads, Union Democrats , or who?

Shiloh had been fought and McClellan was already screwing up in the Peninsula.

In the book I'm reading I don't think it came out, at least
before now, or today's
world where it starts out would be completely different.

I don't want to say now what the book is because someone might
spoil it, but some of you may already guess, if you do say so, but
please don't spoil
it for the rest of us.

So how would it be different, and why?
 
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In it Lincoln says he wants to free all the slaves and send them out of the country to Africa or wherever.

I think your thinking of:
"The American Colonization Society (ACS; in full, "The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America"), established in 1817 by Robert Finley of New Jersey, was the primary vehicle to support the return of free African Americans to what was considered greater freedom in Africa.

Liberia, was founded by the ACS in 1821; declared independence in 1847"

So then you would be asking what if, Lincoln suggested that all freed African Americans were to go to Liberia? Seems a fair question back in 1860, and would take the scare away of the free slaves rebelling attacking the white men.
 
But what do expect will happen regarding:
- Freed slaves who don't want to go back to Africa (by 1860 most slaves would have been born in America with some who would have had ancestors brought over nearly 200 years ago)
- Civil Rights
- Segregation
- Ku Klux Klan (maybe become force deporting officers)
- Immigration
 
I think your thinking of:
"The American Colonization Society (ACS; in full, "The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America"), established in 1817 by Robert Finley of New Jersey, was the primary vehicle to support the return of free African Americans to what was considered greater freedom in Africa.

Liberia, was founded by the ACS in 1821; declared independence in 1847"

So then you would be asking what if, Lincoln suggested that all freed African Americans were to go to Liberia? Seems a fair question back in 1860, and would take the scare away of the free slaves rebelling attacking the white men.

This is April 1862, not anytime 1860. Who benefits if Lincoln was just thinking about it in a diary or something and it is stolen by person or persons unknown? And they release the news?
I suppose anyone could benefit from blackmail, but lets say thats not the deal.

The hero is a war Democrat, who had a friendly visit from John Wilkes Booth shortly before the thing was stolen from him as he was trying to return it to Lincoln without anybody knowing it even existed. Remember April 1862, not 1865.

The hero's cousin, an oppurtunist, stole it from him, (just happened to be in the hero's hotel room closet with a gun) but had it stolen from him and got murdered, by person or persons unknown.
 
This is April 1862, not anytime 1860. Who benefits if Lincoln was just thinking about it in a diary or something and it is stolen by person or persons unknown? And they release the news?
I suppose anyone could benefit from blackmail, but lets say thats not the deal.
The hero is a war Democrat, who had a friendly visit from John Wilkes Booth shortly before the thing was stolen from him as he was trying to return it to Lincoln without anybody knowing it even existed. Remember April 1862, not 1865.
The hero's cousin, an oppurtunist, stole it from him, (just happened to be in the hero's hotel room closet with a gun) but had it stolen from him and got murdered, by person or persons unknown.

This seems a good place to have confederate spies, Rose O'Neal Greenhow and Richard Thomas Jr. (disguised as the "French Lady") lure the drunk, boasting and opportunist cousin into their hotel room in the promise of a nocturnal habit with the two ladies.
Whereby they murder him, and take the diary to General Thomas Jordan.
 
I've just started a novel that jumps back and forth between the present and the
ACW. I think its going to be a secret history. In it a diary of Lincoln's is stolen in April 1862, probably by Copperheads or out and out CSA supporters.

In it Lincoln says he wants to free all the slaves and send them out of the country to Africa or wherever.

Suppose Lincoln had actually wanted this, assuming he did not, and it had come out right then?

Lincoln did want this, more or less, and there was no secret about it.

He stated many times that he wished for all men to be free - always noting that neither he nor Republicans holding the Presidency and Congress would have the constitutional power to liberate slaves.

He also expressed doubts that blacks could live in harmony with whites. In the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, he said there was an intrinsic differences between the races which would prevent their living together as equals. (This was in part a maneuver by him to deflect Douglas' insinuations that Lincoln favored civil and social equality of blacks with whites.)

Later, in encouraging a "colonization" program, he told a group of black leaders that it seemed to him blacks would never get a fair deal in the U.S - white prejudice was just too ingrained.

So the proposed "revelation" would be no surprise at all.
 
The south did not want to send blacks back to Africa, it wanted to keep them as property. After the Civil War the south did not want to send blacks to Farica, it wanted to keep them impoverished and disenfranchised tied to labor contracts etc. The drive behind sending blacks back to Africa was basically in the north, either because this was "right" place for them, because they could not get fair shake in USA, or did not want blacks in USA period.

While a push for black emigration might solidify support for Lincoln in the north, or might not, it won't do anything in the south/CSA because the issue is not the presence of blacks but the presence of slaves. Some southern states had simplified the issue prewar by passing laws that gave a freed slave, or previously free black a short time to leave the state or be (re)enslaved.
 
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