[Ditto]

Abe didn't become a real abolutioist until later in the War, when the North feared defeat.

On 6 March 1862, President Lincoln sent a special message to Congress, which read in part:

Resolved, that the United States ought to co-operate with any state which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such state pecuniary aid, to be used by such state in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences public and private produced by such change of system.

This was after only 1 year in office, less than 8 months after 1st Bull Run and a month before the Battle of Shilo and the beginning of major blood-letting of the Civil War. At about the same time, Lincoln also wrote private letters to the congressional delegations of the 4 Border States pleading for their help in leading emancipation efforts in their states. Your charge that Lincoln was late in proposing abolition is just plan false and just another example of the Lost Cause lies you have been told.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Yeah, President Lincoln was -so- desperate at the end of the war that he proposed in February 1865 (that's late in the war, right?) that $400,000,000 in bonds be made available to the rebel states if they would agree to reassume their rightful place in the Union.

Walt

[ought-six]

"Your charge that Lincoln was late in proposing abolition is just plan false and just another example of the Lost Cause lies you have been told."

Nope, you're wrong. Consider the following:

"My paramount object in this struggle, is to save
the Union and is not either to save or destroy
slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing
any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by
freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I
could save it by freeing some and leaving others
alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery,
and the colored race, I do because I believe it
helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I
forbear because I do not beleive it would help to
save the Union." Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Horace
Greeley, August 22, 1862.

Yeah, a real friend of the slaves. He would have thrown them all, collectively, under a train if it would have satisfied his goal of crushing the South.