Greg;

       Lincoln's illusions to the evils of slavery in the Lincoln-Douglas
debates didn't work out too well for him based on the outcome.  So, he
essentially dropped the issue, including in his presidential run, until it
became politically expedient to oppose slavery during the war in the
Emancipation Proclamation.....but only emancipation in the South, not in the
North.  This was, and is, hardly a ringing endorsement of abolition of slaves
as a factual matter.  However, he can be forgiven because, after all, he was
nothing more than a politician, with all that that implies in terms of moral
commitment and character.

Jeff Southmayd

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