None of that negates the fact that Lincoln was willing to allow the institution of slavery to continue in the states where it already existed and only went to war to retain them in the union. I’m also not sure Britain and France would have recognized them without greater military success on the part of the Confederacy. They were both colonial powers practicing their own forms of de facto slavery on a national scale.
I don’t know anybody who disagrees with your first sentence. Certainly not me.
Why do pro-South types keep bringing this up? Do you think Lincoln going to war to save the Union rather than to free the slaves was an illegitimate war goal? Aren’t you aware that Lincoln himself said this many times? You act like you are debunking some misapprehension, when it is just the normally accepted version of history.
But goals and intentions change with time, and nothing changes them faster than a great war. By the summer of 1862 Lincoln was determined to end slavery.
Union men were increasingly in agreement with this goal. This can be seen by the many claims early in the war that if an Emancipation Proclamation was issued numerous Union soldiers and even regiments would desert. When it actually was issued, no such thing happened. The soldiers had decided, as Lincoln had, that ending slavery was necessary to win the war. So slavery would have to go.
As far as UK not interfering, we have the records of Cabinet discussions from 1862. It is very clear from them that the primary factor was that Her Majesty’s Government could not be seen as interfering on the side of slavery. If not for that, they would have been very happy to see a major competitor nobbled. When Lincoln released the EP, they essentially dropped the idea of jumping in, with regret.