You (and many liberal blacks) can play all the games you want with the fact that Lincoln for political reasons couldn't come out and announce himself an aboloitionist, that Lee freed his slaves, or any other interesting historical nuances you might want to missuse.
The fact is that the South so viewed Lincoln (of "House Divided" fame) as anti-slavery, that it was LINCOLN'S ELECTION which was the event which precipitated the seccession of southern states. Lincoln and his party opposed the expansion of slavery and many in his party wanted it eliminated. Lincoln could not, in an effort to save the Union, announce his truest feelings. But Lincoln eventually emancipated all confederate slaves (and yes he did free them, with the Union Army). And slavery was obviously doomed along with the confederacy.
You can raise the fact that Lee was not a big advocate of slavery. That and many other details make the Civil War facinating. But whatever the confederate soldier fought for in his heart, that war was caused by, and was about, slavery. The Civil war without slavery - it would never have happened.
The end of slavery without a civil war.....it happened everywhere except the US. Wonder why?
In a letter of January 11, 1865, Lee said the best relation of white to black was master to slave.
Lee owned as many as 10 slaves on his own. They came to him through inheritance. His wife had 63, and he used them to increase his net worth. He was also the executor of a will thar required the freeing of slaves. He did not free these slaves; the war did.
Lee did pay for passage for at least one former slave to leave the country.
Walt
Lincoln spoke over and over against slavery. He was a gradualist, and taking what political moves he could, his concept was to increase the pressure over time until the institution was slowly crushed out of existence. His hand was forced when South Carolina's government, who could see the handwriting on the wall, precipitated a more immediate crisis by an Act of Secession (Which specifically stated that the primary cause was Mr. Lincoln's determination to eliminate slavery).
As to the statement, "why didn't he free the slaves in the north first?", this question fails to appreciate the US is a republic and therefore the president did not have the authority to free the slaves by executive order. The Emancipation Proclamation did affect the Confederate States however, because by their secession, they had refused the protections of "states rights" afforded them by the US Constitution. They were therefore under martial law, and the president, as commander-in-chief, forced the issue for them under military rule. I am sure there were very many "Johnny Reb's" who did not see themselves as "fighting for slavery," but very few soldiers fight for ideas, most fight from a sense of honor, loyalty, or duty to their nation or state.
LOL!! Four years into the war and with no support to rely on that he even had to change political parties to run for President. Anyone that thinks the war was over slavery should study some of lincoln's own words, especially the FIRST Inaugural Speech, his plans to ship blacks to Liberia, and his defense of slaveowners in court. Yeah, but it was over slavery. Makes you wonder how three, count them THREE world empires were able to get rid of slavery without a shot fired in almost as short a time as lincoln did while killing 300,000 of his own citizens and 300,000 of another nation's citizens
Sorry, but you have been duped by revisionist historians - slavery was a VERY minor side issue of the war of northern aggression. Those of us who went through public education before the NEA and gays got ahold of the "educational" agenda (actually a movement for socailly engineering mind-numbed robots with no sense of right and wrong) KNOW the facts (i.e, REAL, not revisionist) history, and slavery wasn't what the civil war was about!! Try economics or states rights, but don't presume to be so simplistic or revisionist to say slavery was THE issue!!
It wasn't!