The fact that wlat omits critical portions doesn't change the fact that Douglass stated those opinions about Lincoln. I, unlike Wlat, never claimed that ONLY the bad ones displayed Douglass's opinion, as he did with ONLY the good ones. Of the two of us, it was I who admitted the complexity of that opinion as it pertains to certain issues, which is the truth. Douglass thought both good and bad of Lincoln, something Wlat evidently denies. As that address shows, there were some things, like Lincoln's prejudice against blacks and his willingness to maintain and protect slavery in the States where it existed, that were obviously a negative opinion stated by Mr. Douglass. As well, there good opinions, such as his statement that even in spite of the things just mentioned, Lincoln did hate slavery as a practice and wanted to oppose it's expansion. My whole point in that series was to show how Wlat was "picking out portions".
As regards the Conkling letter, Lincoln was trying to make his case to someone who was lukewarm about emancipation and raising black troops. It's natural that he would have addressed his arguments to Conkling personally, making use of what he knew or assumed to be Conkling's beliefs. If Conkling didn't like the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln points out to him that (as is so often said here) it didn't free all the slaves. If Conkling doesn't like Blacks in the army, Lincoln points out that they are doing their share of the fighting to bring the war to an end faster than would otherwise be the case.
Since you obviously believe Lincoln to be a Clintonesque manipulator who never really wrote or said what he truly believed, I hope I never see you referring to him as "honest Abe"...
What's happening in Lincoln's letter to Conkling is called rhetoric, the art of using language to persuade or convince. It's what lawyers, politicians, and the rest of us have been doing for millennia. It gets a bad name, but everyone who's ever been elected -- or at least reelected -- has practiced it, as we do in everyday life.
The comparison to Clinton isn't a fair one. There are issues that can tear a country apart. It's only prudent when nations are falling apart to watch one's tongue qualify one's opinions so as to find common ground. It was a great failing of the secession movement that they didn't try to win over Northerners within the political process.
Lincoln was a skilled persuader, but not a Clintonesque seducer. The fact that he was no loose-lipped, shoot from the hip Howard Dean, didn't make him a glib, fork-tongued Clinton. I'd say he was a fine medium between the two extremes.