Lincoln Lives: His Approach to Freemen?

If Lincoln had lived out his second term, what would his policy be towards the former slaves? I've heard he was quite keen on shipping them off to Liberia? Would this be something he would push for? Would he focus on the Freemen Bureau? Given the Republican Congress went over President Johnson's head time and again would Reconstruction be much different under Lincoln?
 
If Lincoln had lived out his second term, what would his policy be towards the former slaves? I've heard he was quite keen on shipping them off to Liberia? Would this be something he would push for? Would he focus on the Freemen Bureau? Given the Republican Congress went over President Johnson's head time and again would Reconstruction be much different under Lincoln?


Lincoln was a smart cookie and would never have gone head to head with Congress the way Johnson did.

My guess is that he requires his provisional governors to enrol as voters all literate blacks and those who have served in the Union Army. That would probably satisfy enough Republicans to secure the readmission of the South in late 1865 or early 1866.

He had flirted with the idea of colonisation, but by 1865 seemed reconciled to the fact that there were simply too many blacks in America to be removed. However, if General Butler is to be believed, he still considered the possibility of a colony in Panama or elsewhere for black veterans who didn't want to live in a white-ruled south.
 
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