Abraham Lincoln's Abolition Of Slavery

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- Lincoln’s primary purpose was to preserve the Union and despite his utter hatred for slavery, Lincoln had no intention of uprooting this institution from the South, only to restore national authority in Dixie. Lincoln feared that abolishing slavery altogether would create a colossal rift between the other four slave states that remained within the Union: Missouri, Delaware, Kentucky, and Maryland. Lincoln’s advisors Charles Sumner, Benjamin Wade and Zachariah Chandler, all who which despised slavery, pleaded with Lincoln to alter his policy on slavery and reminded him that slavery was the reason the southern states seceded and has become the cornerstone of the Confederacy. Abolitionists would begin to petition Lincoln as well, one being Frederick Douglas, the most eminent Negro of his generation.