Talk:Abraham Lincoln and slavery

message: Maurice Magnus:  I don't get this edit summary ?  Beginning with the fact that no law could pass the Senate without the support of slave state senators, you also have all the powerful slave state lawmakers (see generally slave power) and the territorial crisis (eg. Wilmot Proviso, Kansas Nebraska Act etc.)  Even for a time Congress had the "gag rule" on anti-slavery petitions, etc. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:07, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: @Alanscottwalker Sorry, I didn't see your comment until now, when I just happened to glance at the Talk page; I did not receive an email alerting me to it. The sentence I edited read, "However, the question of what to do about it [slavery] and how to end it, given that it was so firmly embedded in the nation's constitutional framework, in Congress, and in the economy of much of the country, was complex and politically challenging." Your points are valid, but they are not conveyed in the phrase, "embedded ... in Congress." At least they weren't conveyed to me. I wouldn't be averse to "embedded ... in various congressional actions," but I don't think that that would be helpful, because I don't think that it wouldn't bring to the average reader's mind the items you list. Maurice Magnus (talk) 02:43, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: In Congress

message: This is completely untrue.  In the months before he was sworn in and as certain states left the Union, he made this clear.  He would guarantee the continued existence of slavery in existing slave states if it would preserve the Union.  He had no long term objective to end slavery.  The abolitionists in the Republican Party were livid about this.
He wrote the following to Greeley on August 22, 1862 as the war was already underway.  
"If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Someone needs to edit this blatantly false statement.
What is true is that once the war was underway, he realized that preserving the Union required ending the institution that was the root cause of disunion, which was slavery.  He initially did not make the war about ending slavery, which angered many in his party.  But he decided that it should be about that, and waited for public opinion to catch up as well as the right time to make this pronouncement. Dmbeaster (talk) 04:54, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is supposed to be a summary of published thought. We take WP:SECONDARY sources and weigh them to get the right balance. What we don't do is analyze primary sources to make a novel conclusion and insert this conclusion into the narrative. See WP:No original research which is a hard policy, no leeway there. Binksternet (talk) 06:25, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lincoln's long-term goal was to apply federal pressure on the slave states to get them to abolish slavery on their own, beginning with the four loyal, non-seceding border states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri.