Why was Lincoln unable to profess in 1861 that the government's objective in fighting the war was to eliminate?

Why was Lincoln unable to profess in 1861 that the government's objective in fighting the war was to eliminate slavery?|||Because he never felt that was the reason for the war. He believed that the Union was inviolable and that the confederate states could not be allowed to succeed unless all parties agreed (which he and republicans would not). He would not make them rejoin by force unless attacked first (which happened in April 1861). He wanted an end to slavery but had already passed a law which confirmed slavery in those states that had it and believed it would die an economic death, moreso once he had passed a compensation law which would fairly compensate slave owners for eliminating slavery (an offer only ever taken up by Washington DC)|||Because almost nobody would have supported a war to end slavery. Many did support a war to preserve the union.|||Additionally, he wanted to keep the "border states" (KY, MO, MD, DE) in the Union. They were states that still had slavery, but Lincoln did not want their population and resources to be part of the Confederacy. He also REALLY needed Maryland because Washington D.C. is between Virginia and Maryland and VA was already in the Confederacy.|||Because abolition was never his objective. Before the war Lincoln was a racist who opposed abolitionism. He only introduced the Emancipation Proclamation to weaken the South's war effort and enlist the freed blacks as cannon fodder|||Because it wasn't - the purpose of the war was to preserve the Union.





The Emancipation Proclamation came nearly a year and a half after the war started, when things weren't going well for the Union side, and was made for reasons of political expediency.





Any claim in 1861 that the war was to abolish slavery was not even in Lincoln's mind, and,if it had been, he'd have kept quiet about it, or the 4 border slave states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware) would all automatically have seceded and joined the Confederacy.





Given the proximity of Washington DC (and therefore Lincoln himself) to Maryland, this would have been little short of disastrous to the Northern war effort.