This week President Lincoln met with a delegation of colored men at the White House. The black committee was led by Edward Thomas, president of the Anglo-African Institute for th Encouragement of Industry and Arts.
At the meeting, the president suggested that "you and we are different races. We have between us broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong, I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to both of us, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side." He suggested to them that they perhaps relocate to a Central American country.
Countries Mr. Lincoln had in mind for relocation included Haiti, Honduras and Chiriqui Lagoon in New Granada (Panama).
Free blacks in general responded with hostility toward the president's suggestions. The Liberator newspaper reminded its readers that blacks "are as much the natives of this country as any of their oppressors."
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