Walter, Walter, Walter. Selective quoting does not become you. Lincoln at the debate at Ottawa: "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. ... I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this,
there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. ... But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."This simply cannot be extrapolated to Lincoln not opposing slavery. All it shows is that, in common with most white men of his time, he opposed (at the time he spoke) giving blacks full civil rights.
Saying otherwise verges on a lie.
This simply cannot be extrapolated to Lincoln not opposing slavery. No one is disputing that Lincoln was opposed to slavery. The point has been put forth that Lincoln was simply more opposed to the Humiliation of states leaving the Union under his rule, than he was to slavery.
Slavery is secondary to him. He would put up with it if he could stop the humiliation of being the man who broke the country.
It looks to me like Lincoln was, to use today’s terminology, a flip flopper on slavery. He treated the issue as a political one, rather than being either ideologically opposed.
That explains why he is so easily quoted on both sides.