I posted it so that erod could read for himself Lincoln’s position on slavery at the time he took office.
Lincoln wasn’t an abolitionist like Fremont and Stephens and Sumner. What he was opposed to was the expansion of slavery into the territories. His belief was that if slavery couldn’t expand it would die a natural death. Emancipation for Lincoln was a tactic of war, just as it had been for the Crown during the American Revolution. He wasn’t converted to abolition until the summer of 1863. His strongest belief was as a Unionist. If he had to defend slavery in order to preserve the Union then he would do it, the Union was his highest value.
“You should realize that Lincoln’s speech was widely interpreted at the time as a declaration of war against the South”
Lincoln had made speeches as early as 1858 that sound like he was eager for war. And there is no doubting the position of the Radical Republicans and the Transcendentalists who had been bankrolling John Brown’s terrorism crusade. The southerners had every reason to think that the Republican Party was going to lead the country into war.
Not what he was telling people in his letters in the 1840's and 1850's.
What he was opposed to was the expansion of slavery into the territories.
He said -- that was his finger-in-the-wind political position. It wasn't his goal.
You guys are going to have to quit believing what people said and start believing what they did.