No, I'm not arguing in bad faith. You are oversimplifying and mischaracterizing someone whose complex views tried to balance morality and the ugly facts on the ground.
Lincoln's actual beliefs can be seen in his own words. Let's take, for instance, the first of his seven debates with Stephen Douglas.
https://home.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate1.htm
In this debate, Lincoln made it clear that he morally opposes slavery. He therefore opposed allowing it to spread. But he pointed out simply trying to suddenly eliminate it would create even worse problems. He therefore did not support abolitionism. He even supported returning slaves to slavery if they escaped to a free state. He only supported containing the practice, and hoped for a better solution over time.
This balancing act is made clear in all of his speeches before he was President. It is even visible in the Emancipation Proclamation. It was only after years of war that he came to support the hard-line stance represented in the 13th Amendment. It is extremely unlikely that he would have gotten there without having been hardened by the Civil War.
There really was no immediate threat to slavery. It was only a long-term, potential threat.
Here is an exact passage from his speech laying all this out.
"When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,-to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.
"When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.
"But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go into our own free territory, than it would for reviving the African slave-trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has so long forbid the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle; and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter."
Lincoln's actual beliefs can be seen in his own words. Let's take, for instance, the first of his seven debates with Stephen Douglas.
https://home.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate1.htm
In this debate, Lincoln made it clear that he morally opposes slavery. He therefore opposed allowing it to spread. But he pointed out simply trying to suddenly eliminate it would create even worse problems. He therefore did not support abolitionism. He even supported returning slaves to slavery if they escaped to a free state. He only supported containing the practice, and hoped for a better solution over time.
This balancing act is made clear in all of his speeches before he was President. It is even visible in the Emancipation Proclamation. It was only after years of war that he came to support the hard-line stance represented in the 13th Amendment. It is extremely unlikely that he would have gotten there without having been hardened by the Civil War.
There really was no immediate threat to slavery. It was only a long-term, potential threat.
Here is an exact passage from his speech laying all this out.
"When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,-to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.
"When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.
"But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go into our own free territory, than it would for reviving the African slave-trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has so long forbid the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle; and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter."