When will the out-of-context-quoting stop? For the record, here's the full quote from Lincoln:
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.And you know the funny thing? Somehow, at the end of the war, the slaves ended up free.I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to 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 believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was."
Not hardly. No sale on that one. The Union was never again "the Union as it was" -- because Lincoln and his circle made damned sure it would never again be what it was.
That was the whole point of the war, just as John Quincy Adams had envisioned it 20 years before -- a recasting of the Union without the "undesirable" parts that made people too free.
They killed a million people to make America safe for high tariffs and time-cards, bullying niggardly employers, highhanded and high-hatted billionaires and wage-breakers, and bossism generally.
A rich man's paradise.
Tell that to the sharecroppers and the sheriff's chain gang. They'll die laughing.
Somehow at the end of the war, free labor wound up in a state awfully reminiscent of indentured labor a century earlier. No haggling, no negotating power, no leverage, no nothing. Just the time-card, the black-list, and the Company Store.