[AmericanExceptionalist]

...even during [Lincoln's] proclamation he still said [the slaves] were free in places he had no control over while he had written that they should not be free in places he did have control over.

Yes, The Great Emancipator once declared--quite candidly--that he would do whatever might be necessary to preserve the union, whether that meant freeing all of the slaves, freeing none of the slaves, or freeing some of the slaves, while leaving others in bondage.

That hardly sounds like a principled position.

Moreover, Lincoln was far from color-blind: He even asserted that "[t]here is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."

And these (rather toxic) views were not merely the views of Lincoln during the 1850s--at the time of the heralded Lincoln-Douglas debates--but during the 1860s also...

[manc]

exactly and when I tell people some of his quotes I get the usual of ,”I’ve never heard of that before”.

He was far from being the great man some like to make out, he was certainly a good political official as he knew how to blame others, do the opposite of what he said and switch positions to suit himself.