Lincoln’s position on slavery was secondary to preserving the Union. He was not interested in ending slavery when the shots rang out at Ft Sumter. It was much later when Lincoln faced defeat, depleted supplies, chellenges recruiting soldiers, that he finally capitulated to the Abolitionists and Radical Republicans. He raised large amounts of Bostonian money and recruited 300,000 freed men after the Emancipation Proclamation. The Civil War was NOT about freeing the slaves. It was about Federal control over States Rights, taxing the exports of cotton, and keeping the South a merchantilized colony of the Northern textile industry. It was in the “public’s interest” to control cotton exports from going to higher paying Eurpoean markets.
Well said.
Lincoln was about the Union: if preserving the Union meant defeating Slavery, he was for defeating slavery.
And if preserving the Union meant increasing Slavery, he would have been for that too.