When you contemplate whether the civil war was fought because Lincoln wanted to free the slaves, as against whether he made the Emancipation Declaration as a means of winning the war?
You decide.
In July 1862, Lincoln decided on a major change in the national strategy. Instead of deferring to the border states and Northern Democrats, he would activate the Northern antislavery majority that had elected him and mobilize the potential of black manpower by issuing a proclamation of freedom for slaves in rebellious states — the Emancipation Proclamation. “Decisive and extreme measures must be adopted,” Lincoln told members of his cabinet, according to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Emancipation was “a military necessity, absolutely necessary to the preservation of the Union. We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.”
Read more here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lincoln-as-commander-in-chief-131322819/
Lincoln Thought freeing the slaves an extreme measure, a move only necessary for the preservation of the Union.
“We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.”
Necessity not a conviction.