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Much as he abhorred slavery, Lincoln was always willing to concede to each `` slave state '' the right to decide independently whether to continue or end it.

Though his election was interpreted by many Southerners as the forerunner of a dangerous shift in the federal balance in favor of the Union, Lincoln himself proposed no such change in the rights the Constitution gave the states.

After the war began, he long refused to permit emancipation of the slaves by Union action even in the Border States that stayed with the Union.

He issued his Emancipation Proclamation only when he felt that necessity left him no other way to save the Union.

In his Message of December 2, 1862, he put his purpose and his policy in these words -- which I would call the Lincoln Law of Liberty-and-Union: `` In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free ''.