[lentulusgracchus]

The politicians seized his movement as their own after the fact and started using it to justify their own continued political gains. Spooner being a "true believer" was naturally repulsed (as was Garrison from time to time in his dealings with Lincoln). So in flamboyant Lysander Spooner style, he lashed out with this essay.

It would be interesting to see some of the things Garrison said about Lincoln.....and Wendell Phillips said....but then, Lincoln was a first-rate politician who wasn't letting much out of his hat, I don't think, about what he really intended to accomplish with the Civil War. I have posted that I suspect he always, from 1856 forward, intended to end slavery in the South, by securing the Presidency and then resorting either to constitutional crisis, or a constitutional novelty, or to allowing open conflict to arise.

I've been posting over on the other thread ("Area Confederate Soldiers") so I've been pretty busy.

[GOPcapitalist]

I know that Garrison criticized Lincoln openly during the war. He questioned the president's dedication to emancipation and blasted him for supporting colonization.

Lincoln's slavery position after the mid 1850's is extremely difficult to guage. He does seem to aim in the direction toward abolition, but at other times he's perfectly willing to set back the accomplishment of emancipation for decades so long as he thought doing so would help him with the greater prize of maintaining his power in a coerced union. The Corwin amendment is perhaps the greatest example of this.