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Don’t disagree. Bringing the seceded states back in the Union was Lincoln’s primary objective throughout the war. Ending slaver became one of Lincoln’s objectives later in the war. Through the Emancipation proclamation, the Union Army freed about 3,000,000 slaves before the war ended. Lincoln strongly pushed for the second XIII Amendment before his death. He realized that once the war ended, it would have to be a nation without chattel slavery.

These lost losers always like to claim Lincoln didn't give a crap about the slaves. Any cursory research on Lincoln will show he was anti-slavery from the very beginning of his political career, and had been anti-slavery from a young age. These lost losers like to point to his letter to Horace Greeley to show all he cared about was preserving the Union, but they conveniently leave off the last paragraph of the letter;

Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862.

Hon. Horace Greeley: Dear Sir.

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Yours, A. Lincoln.

The bottom line is that the Republican Party, and Lincoln, wanted to put slavery back on the path of extinction. The same path the founding fathers believed they had put it on. The southern fire eaters were scared by this and thought the best way to protect slavery was to rebel and form their own country. One that would actually enshrine slavery in the constitution by actually using the word slavery. Contrast that with the US constitution were the founding fathers were so embarrassed by slavery they wouldn't even use the word.

But the law of unintended consequences smack the slavocracy in the face. Their rebellion gave Lincoln and the US Congress the power to do the very thing they were afraid of.

I believe the war was a just war. That the deaths of 300,00 men were a small price to pay to get rid of slavery. I actually am glad that the fire-eaters rebelled because if they wouldn't have they could have blocked most efforts by the republicans to restrict slavery. I think slavery would have lasted well into the 20th century and made a mockery of our founding and belief "that all men are created equal."

“Don’t disagree(we can forever dismiss the notion that Lincoln and the North fought for the high moral principle of “freeing the slaves”).”

It is fine that we don’t disagree but you can expect to hear many contend that in some way Lincoln was “fighting to free the slaves” - - and even that the war was fought for high moral purposes.

That, by the way, is not a new idea. It was part of the spiel to keep Britain and France from coming into the war on the side of the South and continued well after the construction began of huge, segregated urban ghettos (unspeakable conditions) in the North that would be fully stocked with poor laborers displaced by the war and needed to create industrial wealth.