“ My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it 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.”
- President Abraham Lincoln, August 22, 1862, in response to Horace Greeley’s editorial, “A Prayer of Twenty Millions,” which had called for immediate emancipation of slaves
Lincoln also opposed slavery on moral grounds.
Why did lincoln want to save the union? the south was a separate country, and He ordered troops onto a foreign land to invade and conquer, subjugate anothe4 population. all the while trampling on the Constitution. slavery or not, the war was an invasion of a foreigne land.