For reasons unknown, you seem compelled insist that the idea of voluntarily resettling blacks was not all but abandoned by the time the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, and you disregard Fredrickson's book as well. What is the point of your hobby-horse? What do you think it proves? Lyndon Johnson no doubt held segregationist views much of his life, and Barry Goldwater changed his views on gays because of one of his own relatives. Staunch conservative South African F.W. deKlerk brokered the end of apartheid and ordered the end of South Africa's nuclear program.  Civilization and human progress are largely the result of humans' ability to change their minds, and in the end, Lincoln changed his.