Northern leaders sought ways to quell the fears of constituents envisioning emancipated slaves flooding northward in search of employment and wages; a theory was advanced that giving the freedmen political control of the defeated South would “drain the northern Negroes back to the South” as they fled northern race prejudice.

 Lincoln and other Republicans promoted ideas of colonization; Grant as president gave serious thought to acquiring Santo Domingo and Haiti as US territories and deporting the freedmen there.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission