But he was.
"When you give the Negro these rights," he [Lincoln] said, "when you put a gun in his hands, it prophesies something more: it foretells that he is to have the full enjoyment of his liberty and his manhood
...By the close of the war, Lincoln was reccomending commissioning black officers in the regiments, and one actually rose to become a major before it was over. At the end of 1863, more than a hundred thousand had enlisted in the United States Colored Troops, and in his message to Congress the president reported, "So far as tested, it is difficult to say they are not as good soldiers as any." When some suggested in August 1864 that the Union ought to offer to help return runaway slaves to their masters as a condition for the South's laying down its arms, Lincoln refused even to consider the question.
--"Lincoln's Men" pp 163-64 by William C. Davis
Walt
That may speak well of Lincoln (though I don't believe I've ever seen you address his many contradictory statements about race), but your sentence completely proves that the cause of the North was NOT TO FREE THE SLAVES! Can you see that? I bet anyone who read it and thinks about it for 5 seconds can see it.