1. A clear majority of the original framers wanted to rid the nation of slavery through measures like the Northwest Ordinance. and,
2. He showed that the federal government clearly had the power to legislate the territories.
That made him a marked man in the south. And it meant that slaver plans to destroy the Union must be quickly brought to fruition. Thanks for all your resarch.
Truth is, John Quincy Adams and others had made those facts plain decades before Lincoln, and Calhoun had already drawn his line in the sand. Calhoun and Co. must hold the all time record for walking out on democratically run proceedings. In fact, while an old and wizened J Q Adams was winning the petition argument in the House, a young representative named Lincoln was watching and learning. The Wilmot Proviso, a carbon copy of the Ordinance of '87, was introduced in the House (and failed) the year before Lincoln took his seat in the House. All throughout, the Slavocracy held that the Congress not only couldn't legislate against slavery in the territories (or DC), they held that Congress couldn't even bring up a motion to consider reading a petition from citizens for abolition of slavery in the territories or DC. Couldn't even discuss discussing it or the hotheads would walk out. How's that for constitional principles? Lincoln was a link in a chain that goes all the way back to the Quakers and men like Ben Franklin, who opposed slavery from the beginning.
but who were willing to make incredible compromises for the long term good of America, and perhaps it isn't wrong to say, humanity. Lincoln understood this.