So did Lincoln.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that ?- I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.First Inaugural Address March 4, 1861.
So maybe something else drove the South to leave the Union.
At the 1860 Republican National Convention, Abraham Lincoln became the Presidential nominee. The Republican platform specifically pledged not to extend slavery and called for enactment of free-homestead legislation, prompt establishment of a daily mail service, a transcontinental railroad and support of the protective tariff.Republican National Platform, 1860 .
You're cherry picking the record in order to pervert the history.
Let's have a multiple guess on who made THESE statements:
This is a world of compensations. He who would BE no slave, must consent to HAVE no slave."
1. Jefferson Davis
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. George Wallace
"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."
1. Robert E. Lee
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Jefferson Davis
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel."
1. Robert E. Lee
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Jefferson Davis
"The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied, and evaded, with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities"; another bluntly calls them "self evident lies"; and still others insidiously argue that they only apply to "superior races."
These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect. -- the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy."
1. Robert E. Lee
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Jefferson Davis
"But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive--even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept."
1. Robert E. Lee
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Jefferson Davis
"Peace does not appear so distant as it did I hope it will come soon and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will have then been proved that among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consumation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it."
1. Robert E. Lee
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Jefferson Davis
"it is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."
1. Robert E. Lee
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Jefferson Davis
Let's keep those cards, lies and half truths coming.
Walt