That's only fair, but but why have they seem to have forgotten Lincoln's approval of Gen. Sherman's Special Field Order #15 which provided 40 acre tracts of land to freed slaves, & more importantly, help by the army in registering deeds of ownership to said lands (sadly abrogated later by President Johnson). Or, Lincoln's proposal to allow freedmen to vote & hold office? When he visited Richmond after its fall to Union forces he told a group of freedmen [paraphrasing]: You are as free as I am, & I invite you to use sword & bayonet to remind any who disagree.

While the colonization idea wasn't the correct approach, it was more than just a scheme by white racists to denude the US of free blacks. Captain Paul Cuffee, the first free black man to visit a sitting president (Madison) in the White House, advocated resettlement to Sierra Leone. Major Martin Delany, the first black officer to reach that rank & one-time partner to Frederick Douglass, believed black people had no future in the US, advocating settlement in the West Indies or African continent.

It's worth noting Gen. Sherman's Special Field Order derived from a meeting held with him, Sec of War Stanton & a delegation of freemen. The last requested two things they felt were necessary to encourage success for freed slaves: land & separation from whites.

Lincoln was wrong about colonization as an ultimate solution to the issues freed slaves faced. But I think he, like any person with two eyes & half-a-wit, foresaw the southern "redemption" movement, knowing that the US doesn't keep large standing armies in peacetime & so could only enforce reconstruction for a limited period.

It's only fair that black people recall the comments he made in the 1850s, but why only those, & not his later opinions formed by contact & experience?