“Lincoln was a racist and didn’t run his 1860 campaign as an abolitionist.”
Lincoln is on record as saying that if he could save the Union by freeing all slaves, he would do so; if he could save it by freeing no slaves, he would do that. He also favored sending freed slaves back to Liberia rather than integrating them into the fabric of American society. It’s very clear he viewed blacks as intellectually and morally inferior to whites.
And that differs him from any Southerner you care to name how?