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.
Yeah, we should just believe what you say instead of what Lincoln said and wrote. What would Lincoln have known about his motives compared to you?
“Lincoln wasn’t an abolitionist like Fremont and Stephens and Sumner.
Not what he was telling people in his letters in the 1840’s and 1850’s.”
In other words you ignore what he wrote in his First Inaugural. Give your magic eight ball a shake and tell us what Abe is telling you from the spirit world, we all want to know.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASproclamation.htm
“Most members of the Republican Party believed that the Constitution protected slavery in the states. However, some Radical Republicans such as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, argued that after the outbreak of the American Civil War the president had the power to abolish slavery in the United States.
In May, 1861, General Benjamin F. Butler, a strong opponent of slavery, was placed in command of Fort Monroe in Virginia. Soon afterwards, runaway slaves began to appear at the fort seeking protection. The slaveowners demanded that the runaways should be returned. Butler refused, issuing a statement that he considered the slaves to be “contraband of war”. Butler’s action was welcomed by those involved in the struggle against slavery and he immediately became a favourite with Radical Republicans.
Abraham Lincoln believed that Butler’s action was unconstitutional. However, after a Cabinet meeting it was decided not to reprimand Butler. Three months later, Major General John C. Fremont, the commander of the Union Army in St. Louis proclaimed that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. This time Lincoln decided to ask Fremont to modify his order and free only slaves owned by Missourians actively working for the South.
When John C. Fremont refused to back down he was sacked. Lincoln wrote to Fremont: “Can it be pretended that it is any longer the government of the U.S. - any government of Constitution and laws - wherein a General, or a President, may make permanent rules of property by proclamation.” Fremont was replaced by the conservative General Henry Halleck. He immediately issued an order forbidding runaway slaves from seeking permission to be protected by the Union Army.
Radical Republicans were furious with Lincoln for sacking John C. Fremont. The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, William Fessenden, described Lincoln’s actions as “a weak and unjustifiable concession in the Union men of the border states. Whereas Charles Sumner wrote to Lincoln complaining about his actions and remarked how sad it was “to have the power of a god and not use it godlike”.
The situation was repeated in May, 1862, when General David Hunter began enlisting black soldiers in the occupied district under his control. Soon afterwards Hunter issued a statement that all slaves owned by Confederates in his area (Georgia, Florida and South Carolina) were free. Lincoln was furious and despite the pleas of Salmon Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, the instructed him to disband the 1st South Carolina (African Descent) regiment and to retract his proclamation.
On 19th August, 1862, Horace Greeley wrote an open letter to the Abraham Lincoln in the New York Tribune about forcing David Hunter to retract his proclamation. Greeley criticized the president for failing to make slavery the dominant issue of the war and compromising moral principles for political motives. Lincoln famously replied on 22nd August, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or 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.”
Despite this public dispute with Horace Greeley, Lincoln was already reconsidering his views on the power of the president to abolish slavery. He wrote that the events of the war had been “fundamental and astounding”. He admitted that these events had changed his mind on emancipation. He was helped in this by William Whiting, a War Department solicitor, who told him that in his opinion, the president’s war powers gave him the right to emancipate the slaves.
After consulting with his vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln wrote the first draft of his Emancipation Proclamation. When Lincoln told his Cabinet of his plans to free the slaves in the unconquered Confederacy, Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster General led the attack on the idea. Blair argued that if Lincoln went ahead with this it would result in the Republican Party losing power. William Seward, the Secretary of State, agreed with Lincoln’s decision but advocated that it should not be issued until the Union Army had a major military victory. “