President Lincoln was not an abolitionist. Abolionists favored immediate, uncompensated emancipation.
President Lincoln was more pragmatic and realistic than they were. Frederick Douglass said that from the genuine aboltion ground, President Lincoln seemed cold and indifferent.
But he saw the way to begin to eliminate slavery from the American scene -- limit it to where it already existed. That was the most painless way to begin to phase it out.
When the slave holders took exception to even this moderate proposal and fired on Old Glory, he suggested compensated emancipation, colonization and other schemes to stop the fighting and start the talking again. But the pride and hubris of the slave holders bore them down to the utter dregs of defeat.
Walt