Of course slavery was "the" issue (despite claims of neo-confederates to the contrary) that was tearing the country apart. My point was that from the moment he was challenged with disunion, the Union was Lincoln's pole star, his one primary challenge as President.
Didnt he say somethin to the effect that if he had to keep slavery to preserve the union, he'd do it, and if he had to abolish slavery to preserve the union he'd do it. He clearly aw slavery as important but secondary.
Also, it was not the Republican platform nor Lincoln's intended political goal to abolish slavery outright:
http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/repub.html
Cooper Union - interesting speech but focussed on expansion of slavery into territories, not slavery in existing states...
http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/cooper.html
What an interesting issue. Of course you are correct, and early in the war Lincoln did say
if he had to keep slavery to preserve the union, he'd do it, and if he had to abolish slavery to preserve the union he'd do it.
I reckon my point is that, IMHO, Lincoln was always an Abolitionist (of sorts) and that as the War Between the States ground on, he came to see more clearly that Slavery and the Union could not legitimately co-exist.
I am also well aware of the effort toward "Gradual Emancipation with Compensation," "Colonization in Africa," "Colonization in Nicaragua," and all the other trial balloons Lincoln sent aloft, and the general racial views he held at one time or another. To my mind, that he became a fervent abolitionist does him credit.