“I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia.” But a moment’s reflection convinced him of the impossibility of that. “What then, free them and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? . . . What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals?” Even if Lincoln’s own feelings would accept this, “we well know that those
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