It was preserving the Union. As he wrote to Horace Greeley in August 1862 in response to an editorial by Greeley urging immediate emancipation in all states,
As to the policy I ‘seem to be pursuing,’ as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was.’ If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
Lincoln added that “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of
official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed
personal wish that all men every where could be free.” (Italics in original.)
At the time he wrote the letter, a substantial number of slaves had gained their freedom by running to the United States Army. Thus, Lincoln’s claim that he would save the Union “without freeing
any slave” was mere rhetoric, designed to placate Northern conservatives and residents of the four loyal slave states. Lincoln had also just signed the Second Confiscation Act, which set out a process -- albeit a fairly cumbersome one -- to emancipate slaves of rebel masters.
More importantly, neither Greeley nor anyone else outside the president’s cabinet and inner circle knew that more than a month before he wrote this letter, Lincoln had drafted the Emancipation Proclamation. He was simply waiting for the right moment -- a major United States victory in the East -- to announce his plan to end slavery in the Confederacy. Thus, his claim that he would save the Union without freeing any slaves was shrewdly political. Lincoln was in fact planning to free more than three million slaves in the 11 states that had seceded from the Union.
Lincoln was correct, however, by noting that he might have to free some of the slaves, and leave the others in bondage. Under the Constitution, neither Congress nor the president had any power to liberate slaves in the border states that had not joined the Confederacy. But Lincoln could use his power as commander in chief to strike at slavery in those states that claimed to be out of the Union and were making war on the United States.
Finally, Lincoln made clear to friends and critics alike that he was no friend of slavery by reaffirming his “oft-expressed
personal wish that all men every where could be free.” The message was unmistakable. Lincoln was personally opposed to slavery and he always had been. He was dismantling it as best he could, given the constraints of the Constitution and the necessity of winning the war. In the next month he would issue the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.
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