What did Lincoln believe about Presidential authority and slavery?

Question

What did Lincoln believe about Presidential authority and slavery?

Answer 1

Lincoln did not believe the Constitution gave him the authority as President to end or restrict slavery (though he did believe that Congress could and should restrict its GROWTH, keeping it out of the territories... which would cause it, in time, to die out.)

But he DID believe the President had the authority as commander-in-chief to free slaves in rebellious territories for MILITARY NECESSITY.

http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=39&subjectID=3
http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=44&subjectID=3

In fact, Lincoln is extremely careful to lay this out in the Emancipation Proclamation -- both the military reason AND that it applied specifically to territories THEN in rebellion.

These restrictions were NOT because he did not wish for wider emancipation (which he was negotiating for with border states... then later with Congress to pass an amendment about [the 13th]). It was because he firmly believed his authority only extended that far AND because he expected this action to be challenged in federal court, even to the Supreme Court (under the same Roger Taney who had written the Dred Scott decision! and which had already opposed other military actions Lincoln had taken), and he wanted to give it the best chance to survive that challenge.

Read just how Lincoln explained his reasons in his 'preliminary' proclamation of Sept 22, 1862. Here's the opening (read the whole --it's brief-- to get more):

"I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of American, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the states, and the people thereof, in which states that relation is, or may be suspended or disturbed."
http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/library/features/ep/
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(One additional consideration -- a more extreme step would have caused such a POLITICAL backlash in the North that he could hardly have carried on the war effort, let alone that move.

That was only wise.. as Frederick Douglass later pointed out:
"Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. From the genuine abolition view, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent, but measuring him by the sentiment of his country — a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult — he was swift, zealous, radical and determined."
http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=1&subjectID=1

Answer 2

"I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."
--From the June 16, 1858 House Divided Speech

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling."
--From the April 4, 1864 Letter to Albert Hodges

To interpret:

Lincoln was personally against slavery, he thought it was detrimental to the health of the nation. However, he didn't think that the president had the authority to remove it outright.

And, contrary to popular belief, he never did outlaw slavery.

Instead, as Lincoln would have approved of, the Congress passed Constitutional amendments banning it.