Republican leaders like Abraham Lincoln understood from the time of John Quincy Adams that Civil war would necessarily destroy slavery, but delayed fully taking that step until it became clear there was no other way to victory.
The war ended with slavery still lawful in several northern states. The fully taken abolition of slavery in the United States was a step not taken until adoption of the 13th Amendment.
Here's the real truth: Republicans formed out of the defeated Whigs as specifically the anti-slavery party -- anti-slavery for religious/moral reasons (the Bible forbids slavery for God's people), anti-slavery for philosophical reasons (all men Created equal), anti-slavery for economic reasons (no wage competition with slave-labor) and anti-slavery for social reasons (slavery made white Southerners into arrogant SOBs).
Here's the real truth. Abolitionists had always been a minor force. The Whigs rebranded as the Republicans and needed a wedge issue to engage in divide and conquer politics. For this, politicians such as Lincoln discovered newfound feelings of anti-slavery. Having never before campaigned on the slavery issue, after seeking office with the Republican party, he never campaigned on anything else. In Lincoln's days as a state Representative, he stated on March 3, 1837, "that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils... the Congress of the United States has no power, under the constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different states... the Congress of the United States has the power, under the constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but that that power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of said District."
On August 24, 1855, Lincoln is unendingly quoted as writing to Joshua Speed, "You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave—especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you to yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the constitution and the Union.
Yea, verily, in 1855 Lincoln told Speed to recall a rafting trip of 1841 where the sight of slaves continually tormented poor Lincoln, and in 1855 continued to have the power to make him miserable. Powerful stuff by the newly minted Republican politician.
However, it may be more instructive to learn what the same Lincoln wrote on September 27, 1841 to Mary Speed, directly after the same rafting trip, while the event was still fresh in his mind. "You remember there was some uneasiness about Joshua's health when we left. That little indisposition of his turned out to be nothing serious; and it was pretty nearly forgotten when we reached Springfield. We got on board the Steam Boat Lebanon, in the locks of the Canal about 12. o'clock. M. of the day we left, and reached St. Louis the next monday at 8 P.M. Nothing of interest happened during the passage, except the vexatious delays occasioned by the sand bars be thought interesting. By the way, a fine example was presented on board the boat for contemplating the effect of condition upon human happiness. A gentleman had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together. A small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this fastened to the main chain by a shorter one at a convenient distance from, the others; so that the negroes were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trot-line. In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and many of them, from their wives and children, and going into perpetual slavery where the lash of the master is proverbially more ruthless and unrelenting than any other where; and yet amid all these distressing circumstances, as we would think them, they were the most cheerful and apparantly happy creatures on board."
Vexatious delays may have tormented him, but the sight of the happiest creatures on board did not.
On December 21, 1848, Congressman Daniel Gott of New York offered a resolution to force a House committee to report a resolution calling for a bill banning the slave trade in Wasington, D.C. Pro-slavery congressmen offered a motion to lay Gott's resolution on the table, i.e., kill it. Lincoln sided with the pro-slavery southern contingent and voted to lay Gott's resolution on the table.
This was raised again for reconsideration on December 27, 1848, and again Lincoln voted with the pro-slavery contingent to kill it.
On July 17, 1858, Lincoln stated, "Although I have ever been opposed to slavery, so far I rested in the hope and belief that it was in course of ultimate extinction. For that reason, it had been a minor question with me." Indeed, it did not become an expressed interest of Lincoln until he became a Republican and sought to resurrect his political career.
Plus, at least one of your fellow Lost Causers (DL) has even argued that Lincoln's wartime emancipation in Confederate states should have ended with Confederate surrender in April 1865, so that slavery should have been legal in those states too, until the 13th was ratified in December 1865.
The reality is that by the time of Confederate surrenders, slavery was de facto abolished in every state & territory except two: Kentucky & Delaware.
In Kentucky it's estimated about 50,000 slaves remained of circa 500,000 in 1860 and in Delaware maybe 2,000.
So the war itself had freed over 95% of slaves, leaving only a small number to be freed by the 13th Amendment.
That's the truth.
No, that's a lie, just one among many our Democrat Lost Causers post.
The real truth is abolitionists included nearly all our Founders, even Virginians like Washington, Jefferson, Madison & Patrick Henry.
They all said they wanted to abolish slavery, and some, like Jefferson took action toward abolition.
Northern Founders by 1787 had already begun to abolish slavery in their own states, and within a few years all Northern states had begun abolition.
So abolition was a big deal in 1787 and it became a bigger deal all across the North -- virtually every Northerner was an abolitionists in his own state.
In the South it became a different story, but as late as the 1830s, Virginia was still trying to live up to the Founders' promises.
Only when Virginia failed at abolition did Southerners generally give up on the idea and begin to advocate slavery as a positive good moral thing.
This lead Southern Democrats to oppose abolition not just in their own states but also in Western territories, and in the right of Northern states to declare visiting slaves freed, if their masters stayed too long (i.e., Dred Scott).
Now it's true that most Northerners were content to let slavery abide in the South, but no Northerner wanted slavery in the territories, much less in their own states!
And that's what the Republican party was based on.
Regardless, for Southetn Democrat Fire Eaters, even one radical Northern abolitionists (i.e. John Brown) was plenty enough to justify secession & war against the United States.
And so the war came and slavery was destroyed by men who did care less about slavery than about Union, but nevertheless understood that for the Union to survive, slavery must necessarily be destroyed.,
And that's the real truth, FRiend.
In January 1849 Congressman Lincoln drafted his own bill to abolish slavery in Washington DC, with compensation for slaveholders.
Lincoln's bill went nowhere and was withdrawn.
In 1862 Pres. Lincoln again proposed compensated abolition in Washington, and this time it passed into law.
And the manner in which that was done was a farce. All the people in the conquered states were not allowed to vote. This was a denial of the rights of the people and the 13th amendment was rubber stamped by a puppet "Vichy" government.
No amendment should have been possible until the normal civil order was restored, and I am quite confident that if the actual will of the people was made manifest, the 13th amendment would never have passed.