I think Lincoln was pretty sure what he intended to do about Slavery. I think the South was pretty sure what he intended to do also. That’s why they left. The fact that he upheld (as you cite) Slavery laws of the land doesn’t tell us his personal views on Slavery. He hated Slavery. Even you know that. Don’t confuse his contemporary racial inequality views with his views on Slavery. Despite the early view, which he outgrew, that blacks were inferior to whites, he still hated the institution of Slavery. Does this ring a bell, “No man should earn his bread from the sweat of another man’s brow”? What Lincoln did was make the hollow words of the founding fathers stick. All men are created equal. The matter of whether or not all men were the same is a separate issue. It took Baptism by Blood for this country to grow up.
Perhaps you can enlighten us as to just what Lincoln was thinking at the moment the bullet ripped through his brain. As the story goes he had recently delivered a speech to the Nation (now reunited) in which he spoke about giving Blacks the right to vote. The demented coward who shot him from behind didn’t like that speech. The point is that neither you nor anyone else has the right to judge Lincoln, because his work was never finished. In fact, his assassination made things that much worse for the South. I like to think today’s world would be very different had Lincoln lived to complete the four years of his second term.
It sounds like you think Lincoln intended to end slavery one way or another. In his House Divided speech he said as much.
Lincoln knew, the South knew - and you know - Lincoln did not have the super majority of votes needed to abolish constitutional slavery using the peaceful, amendment process.
There was another way to abolish constitutional slavery: violent overthrow by military force.
But Lincoln would need a pretext for war. He found it with the skillful use of the U.S. Navy during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. I meant to say the Fort Sumter Incident.
If you are right, Lincoln deliberately intended to use the military to violently overthrow U.S. constitutional slavery.
Maybe you are right.
Yeah, he was gonna leave it alone. He said so many times. He even called for the passage of an amendment to guarantee it forever, or until every last state gave it up voluntarily, whichever came first.
And why not? It was producing 72% of his revenue to finance the Federal government.
We may think he was principled, but he wasn't stupid.
What Lincoln intended to do about slavery was pass a constitutional amendment that would have expressly protected slavery effectively forever.
He also intended to pass strengthened fugitive slave laws.
He just wanted to make sure no new states that allowed slavery would come in so that his section of the country and the special interests backing his party would dominate the US Senate and White House like they already dominated the US House of Representatives. He wanted to make sure the Southern States could no longer seriously oppose his massive tariffs and government gravy train which benefitted his region and the special interests who supported him.