THE LINCOLN FALLACY LET'S PLAY OUT THE POSSIBILITIES

I. The South seceded, and did not free its slaves. (Factual)

Lincoln had to attack.

II. The South stayed in the Union, but freed its slaves, even without compensation (a crucial point, really). (Counterfactual)

Lincoln had to attack. Freed slaves, free to roam into the North, was totally unacceptable to the Northern whites who had elected him to eliminate that very possibility.

III. The South stayed in the Union, but did not free its slaves. The bogey of the Democrats nationalizing slavery. (Counterfactual)

Lincoln had to attack. This was a fear greater than II for Northern whites who had elected Lincoln to eliminate that possibility.

IV. The South stayed in the Union, but voluntarily converted its slaves to indentured servants.

Lincoln still had to attack because this solution was unacceptable to Northern white voters.

Let's even go to the seemingly wildest but valid hypothetical:

V. The South stayed in the Union, either freed or indentured its own slaves, and even required them to remain only in the South.

Lincoln still had to attack because this situation was unacceptable to Northerners, violated Lincoln's campaign promises to rid the republic of negroes, slave or free, and Congress would not have put up with it, especially with the prospect of free or indentured negroes illegally migrating into the territories. 

This would have been considered a reverse and a coopting Emancipation Proclamation, and would have been viewed by the North just as Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had rightly been viewed by the South: as a weaponizing of freed negroes.

So you see, there was no logical possibility that the South might have pursued that would have satisfied the North under Lincoln without war. 

Most startlingly, even if they had stayed in the Union, and had freed their own slaves, Lincoln would have been required by Northern public sentiment and his platform itself to declare war. 

Freed negroes, free to immigrate North, was totally unacceptable to Lincoln's Northern electorate.

The only scenario under which Lincoln, or a Radical Republican successor would not have attacked the South  is this:

The South would have had to remain in the union, to free its slaves, for no compensation, and to have transported them at its expense to some other country or territory. 

They would not have been allowed to transplant them to one of the territories in the West, because Northern white racists who had elected Lincoln wanted them gone from the entire continent.

They would not have been allowed to convert them to the status of indentured servants, because Northern whites did not want indentured servitude even for whites, much less for unwanted freed negroes, anywhere. 

This was why there was a big push, by Lincoln, to import large amounts of white labor from Europe, near the close of the Civil War. So, what was Lincoln going to do with the obsolete negroes? He did very little in his lifetime to either repatriate them, or suggest a place for them, once freed, in white American society.

It is crystal clear, moreover, that the North was unwilling to pay a dime for compensation to slave owners, regardless of Lincoln's personal inclinations to the contrary.

Jesus had no mission to the gentiles. Cf.  E P Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus

Lincoln had no mission to the negroes. No jobs, no indentured servitude, no racial mixing, no transportation/repatriation, nothing. 

He emancipated them as a war measure. He impressed them into service as Union soldiers.

That was the full extent of his political action on the question.

It remained to the Radical Republicans to take measures never dreamed of by Lincoln.

This post is dedicated to Philip Bobbitt.