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"Federal compensation provided for states agreeing to abolish slavery by January 1, 1900"
To me, this conveys no sense of urgency about freeing the slaves. If slavery's evil was so great, why did he not propose immediate emancipation?
No, he wanted to give the slave states 38 years to continue slavery and then compensate those states that complied. Seems to me his concern was not for the slaves but for bribing back into the Union those states that had seceded.
He figured he'd be dead and gone by 1900, so someone else would have to deal with resolving the issue at that time.
I abhor slavery, but I think Lincoln was not interested in freeing slaves so they could enjoy equal status with whites; else, why would he propose shipping them out of the country?
Lincoln foresaw many problems with 4 million slaves being set free all at once. (The results of Reconstruction, the KKK, etc. clearly show he was right.) Colonization was just one plan and one that had been discussed for years by many people before him. It was to be on a VOLUNTEER basis. It was more for the benefit of the freed, not whites.
After the E.P., Lincoln never discussed colonization again as a serious solution.
(And better to free slaves by 1900, then the Confederacies plan to continue it, and even expand it into the western territories and nations south.) I'm not sure why he's being criticized for actually proposing SOME kind of abolition, when the aristocracy of the Confederacy embraced slavery as, (their words) "a necessary good."