The Vice President of the Confederacy disagreed with you. His Cornerstone speech says all we need to know
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”
And what were Abraham Lincolns’ beliefs....
and his solutions to the problems of the times...?
“Many Lincoln researchers do acknowledge what would, today, be considered “racist” overtones in Lincoln’s early political life. On Oct. 13, 1858, during his famed debates with Judge Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln spoke to what he considered to be basic black and white racial differences “which, in my [Lincoln’s] judgment, will probably forever forbid their [blacks] living together on the footing of perfect equality.”
In the same speech, Lincoln states, “I agree with Judge Douglas that [a black] is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color - perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat the bread without leave of anybody else which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man.” In this statement, despite his reference to differences in “intellectual and moral endowments,” Lincoln shows his belief that both black and white were entitled to equal rights and protection under the Constitution.”
The Founders’ Library, Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
...”After seeing over 200,000 African-Americans volunteer and fight alongside Union forces, Lincoln dropped his support for plans to colonize freed slaves to Africa after the Civil War.”
So Lincoln did “evolve” faster than most of the time.