The following are President Lincoln's words at a repatriation ceremony in Washington, D.C. I have urged the colonization of the negroes, and I shall continue. My Emancipation Proclamation was linked with this plan. There is no room for two distinct races of white men in America, much less for two distinct races of whites and blacks. I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the negro into our social and political life as our equal... Within twenty years we can peacefully colonize the negro and give him our language, literature, religion, and system of government under conditions in which he can rise to the full measure of manhood. This he can never do here. We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable. (Vol. V, pp. 371-5)[16] See our present condition -- The country engaged in war! -- our white men cutting one another's throats . . . and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other… It is better for us both therefore to be separated. . . You and we are different races. We have between us a 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 us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. (address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes in Washington, DC on August 14, 1862 (Vol. V p. 371)