general. Recently discovered documents prove that Butler and Lincoln did indeed meet on April 11, 1865, though whether and to what extent they talked about colonization is not recorded except in Butler's account. A postwar article by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles suggested that Lincoln intended to revive colonization in his second term. Citizenship and limited suffrage In his second term as president, on April 11, 1865, Lincoln gave a speech in which, for the first time publicly, he promoted voting rights for some blacks, stating "It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers." John Wilkes Booth, a Southerner and outspoken Confederate sympathizer, attended the speech and became determined to kill Lincoln for supporting citizenship for blacks. Booth assassinated Lincoln three days later. In analyzing Lincoln's position historian Eugene H. Berwanger notes: Views on African Americans Known as the Great Emancipator, Lincoln was a complicated figure who wrestled with his own views on race. Through changing times, successive generations have interpreted Lincoln's views on African Americans differently. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr.: "To apply 20th century beliefs and standards to an America of 1858 and declare Abraham Lincoln a 'racist' is a faulty formula that unfairly distorts Lincoln's true role in advancing civil and human rights. By the standards of his time, Lincoln's views on race and equality were progressive and truly changed minds, policy and most importantly, hearts for years to come." Lincoln's primary audience was white (male) voters. Lincoln's views on slavery, race equality, and African-American colonization are often intermixed. During the 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln stated that the "physical difference between the white and black races ... will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality". He added that "there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." On August 22, 1862, he said to a delegation of five black men whom he'd invited to the White House: While president, as the American Civil War progressed, Lincoln advocated or implemented anti-slavery policies, including the Emancipation Proclamation and limited suffrage for African Americans, which he had