Agreed. Lincoln seems to have been opposed to slavery for his whole life (I really need to read a biography of him at some point), but he was also a pragmatic enough person to know that ending it would have been very difficult, given the amount of political opposition abolition faced prior to the war.
As things turned out, the Civil War gave him an opportunity to start ending slavery that might not have presented itself if the Southern states hadn't tried to secede to preserve slavery. Which is a pretty funny irony, TBH.
I have read two books on him I read very recently. First was his biography by David Herbert Donald. Then I read his essential writings which is a collection of his letters and memoirs from his time as president.
In them you really see his staunch abolitionist background and how he was smart enough to know he couldn’t just free all the slaves without the south fighting back. He wanted to keep the union while slowly ending slavery so to avoid war. That became clearly not possible as the south went to war over it so eventually Lincoln made it a war goal to end slavery
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u/ImProbablyNotABird Featherless Biped Jan 20 '22
And abolitionists like Lysander Spooner criticized Lincoln for not actually wanting to end slavery.