“Yes, it does (make the case that Lincoln fought to free the slaves). The author shows Lincoln at work in a situation that limited what was possible. Thanks for asking.”
As stated, I have not read the book but, for the sake of this post, let’s stipulate that President Lincoln did indeed “fight to free the slaves.”
In the moral sense that can be justified. If slavery was morally wrong, what can be more justified than using guns to kill people who owned slaves? After all, the purpose of the federal government is to kill immoral people, the argument goes.
But from the view point of the United States Constitution I would argue that Lincoln was wrong to - as the book says - fight to free the slaves.
The United States Constitution - the original one - included pro-slavery provisions. Slavery was legal. In fact, of the 13 original states, 13 of them were slave states.
If Lincoln was fighting to “free the slaves” then he was fighting to overthrow the pro-slavery provisions of the United States Constitution.
U.S. Presidents really should not take up arms to violently overthrow the United States Constitution. The peaceful amendment process is the way to legally amend the Constitution.
It has been awhile since I have heard the argument made that Lincoln “fought to free the slaves.” Maybe he did.
Lincoln himself said he fought to preserve the Union, first and foremost.
If Lincoln did indeed “fight to free the slaves” it would seem awfully strange then that he supported the Corwin Amendment which would have enshrined slavery in the constitution expressly and protected it effectively forever.
It seems strange too that he would be against abolition in areas the Union controlled, yet by his own words, he was: “I am a little uneasy about the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia” Lincoln March 24 1862 in a letter to Horace Greeley, New York Tribune editor
It also seem strange he would tell members of his own party that they did not go to war to put down slavery, yet he did:
“Lincoln remained unmoved. . . . ‘I think Sumner [abolitionist Charles Sumner] and the rest of you would upset our applecart altogether if you had your way,’ he told the Radicals. . . . ‘We didn’t go into this war to put down slavery . . . and to act differently at this moment would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith.’ Vindication of the president’s view came a few weeks later, when the Massachusetts state Republican convention—perhaps the most Radical party organization in the North—defeated a resolution endorsing Fremont’s proclamation.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 75-76, emphasis added)
There is a lot more but you get the gist.
Had the Southern States not seceded from the Union, the XIII, XIV, and XV Amendments, as they now exist would not be in the Constitution.