someone must not have read him the letter where Lincoln basically said he was just dandy with slavery
nope, go search for it yourself
“someone must not have read him the letter where Lincoln basically said he was just dandy with slavery”
That’s an exchange of letters with Horace Greeley IIRC. But Lincoln was hardly indifferent to slavery, it’s rather that his overriding concern was to preserve the Union and if that required guaranteeing slavery’s continued existence he would do it. Frederick Douglass went over this in a speech he gave at the 10th anniversary of Lincoln’s death.
Lincoln gave a speech in January 1848 about the Mexican war stating he his support for secession. Apparently that changed when he was in charge. He was a professional politician and as hypocritical as any of them.
“...Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better— This is a most valuable, — a most sacred right — a right, which we hope and belive, is to liberate the world...”
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mal:@field(DOCID+@lit(d0007400))
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."
And yet, Lincoln ended slavery. So in essence, doing the right thing is superior to saying the right things ala a "real conservative".