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That's nice and all but (1) I really don't care what somebody else said about lincoln - I care what lincoln said himself and (2) what lincoln said himself throughout his political career clearly demonstrates him taking positions all over the radar screen with regards to slavery: from openly expressing an enthusiastic willingness to tolerate it in the form of a constitutional amendment (see lincoln's first inaugural) to abolishing all together it in certain places

Lincoln said himself on many occasions that his bedrock oposition was that slavery not be allowed in the territories. That is why the slave holders bolted.

Too, you can only sound like a fool to characterize Lincoln as "enthusiastic" on the proposed 13th amendment.

In Lincoln's famous letter to Horace Greeley in Augst 1862, he reiterated what he said over and over--that his personal wish was for all men everywhere to be free. You cannot get the record to support any other position on his part.

Walt

Lincoln said himself on many occasions that his bedrock oposition was that slavery not be allowed in the territories.

That he may have said, but he also said he had no objections to an amendment that would specifically allow and protect slavery in those territories after they became states.

That is why the slave holders bolted.

If that is why they bolted, why then did they not cease from bolting upon recieving notification that this supposed objection of theirs had been reconciled in a constitutional amendment that permitted slavery in those territories after they became states?

Too, you can only sound like a fool to characterize Lincoln as "enthusiastic" on the proposed 13th amendment.

I would tend to think that a fool would be a person who denies Lincoln's support of that amendment in clear conflict with the written record of Lincoln himself rather than the person who simply notes that record's existence and lets that record speak for itself.