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Privately, Lincoln always supported abolition, but he felt that he had to be slow about introducing it to the country for it to be accepted. His original political position was Containment, preventing the spread of slavery from the southern states. Once the war broke out, Lincoln devised the Emancipation Proclamation to lure the Southern states back into the Union, and to prevent foreign nations from forming an alliance with the Confederacy. In the event, the rebel states remained intractable, but the foreign powers remained neutral.

With the above thoughts in mind, US President Lincoln had already made his personal view about slavery well known. Especially in the 1858 debates with Senator Stephen A. Douglas.

It was only later in the Summer of 1862, did Lincoln begin his drafts on the preliminary emancipation proclamation. This was due to the fact that the war was not rapidly moving in the direction that Lincoln had hoped for.

France and England continued to trade and supply the South irregardless of the proclamation.

Basically, in Lincoln's mind the proclamation would be a war measure. And, even more radical Republicans in his cabinet advised Lincoln not to issue it for fear of how the slave holding border states might react.

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9y ago

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