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So they lie so that they can accomplish good? If their secret agenda is so great, why do they have to lie about it?

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It's not always lies. Many times it is. Sometimes it's standard political equivocation. And, obviously, it wouldn't be wise to come out and say he'd free the slaves. I don't know whether or not you're insinuating that freeing the slaves might not be a good cause, but it's something the south definitely didn't want. I don't really want to argue about the honesty and ethics in politics as that's just a red herring. In this specific instance, I'm willing to give Lincoln the benefit of the doubt, because of all I've read about him, that he genuinely wanted slavery ended, and it would've been a [censored] move to come out and say it. Mincing words with the south was a more politic way of handling the situation.

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If Lincoln had determined for himself that one day slavery would be outlawed, he wouldn't come out guns blazing and free every slave, especially right after states began to secede. Doing so would basically make it impossible to end the war without a bloody, drawn out battle and military surrender.

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Huh? Isn't that exactly what happened? Or is 600,000 dead not "bloody" in your opinion?

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Oh come on now. If you really need me to spell it out I will, but I know you're smart enough to figure out what I'm implying. He didn't want a long battle, so he didn't free the slaves right away. Once he saw that the battle couldn't be ended diplomatically he pulled out all the stops.

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The Emancipation Proclamation was a political as well as military decision, which of course furthered his own goal (in my opinion) of freeing slaves.

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You got the first part right. The political goal was to gain foreign support for the union (which succeeded), and therefore to end any possibility of foreign assistance to the confederacy.

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Yeah, that was one reason. I'm not going to argue that Lincoln handled the slave situation the best way he could, and in the end it looked a little self-serving for the Union. But you can't really deny the guy had a place in his heart for freeing slaves.