Not in ‘62. Negotiation in good faith would have been a decade earlier. But, again - there never was a desire for a peaceful solution.
After the campaign in the summer of 1848 and the rise of anti-extensionist pressure Lincoln's position evolved. When a new case to indemnify a slaveholder appeared, Lincoln began by voting in favor of a 'bill for the relief of the legal representatives of Antonio Pacheco,' who had lost a slave during an Indian war, before voting, in vain, against it. Was this a significant change in Lincoln's position on the property rights of slaveholders? Perhaps it was merely a defensive reaction in response to the bitterness of the strictly sectional debate because this position was contradicted by the rest of Lincoln's attitude. He always insisted that the emancipation of slaves should be compensated financially and should be voluntary. This might have been, then, a sort of parliamentary 'war measure,' foreshadowing another war measure taken by the commander in chief 1862.1