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To: dp0622
someone must not have read him the letter where Lincoln basically said he was just dandy with slavery

nope, go search for it yourself

Well I did a search and what he said was this:

"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."

He also said this:

"Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow."

And this:

"I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any abolitionist. I have been an Old Line Whig. I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began."

And finally this: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it."

19 posted on 01/30/2016 1:18:27 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
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To: Kaslin

But it wasn’t the issue of slavery that sparked the war. The concern of slavery was later used to justify the tremendous suffering and loss of life.


22 posted on 01/30/2016 1:21:45 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Kaslin

http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/02/18/the-other-13th-richard-albert

read it and weep


28 posted on 01/30/2016 1:56:19 PM PST by dp0622
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To: Kaslin; dp0622

Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” 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. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Yours,
A. Lincoln.

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm


44 posted on 01/30/2016 9:40:08 PM PST by Pelham (Barack Obama, loyal son of Islam and Alinsky)
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