Lincoln believed that the economy, and thus the well-being, of the nation would be best served by preserving the nation – i.e. not allowing the Southern states to exercise their right to leave that union, as granted them in the Constitution of the United States of America.

That was Lincoln’s main goal. He was willing to do almost anything to achieve it, even free the slaves in the South. Note: His proclamation did NOT free the slaves in the North.

I do not believe that Lincoln’s religious beliefs had a great effect on his actions as a president, either before, during, or after the Civil War. There should be a link there to Senator Douglas’ letter expressing his disapproval at Lincoln’s continued hesitance to free the slaves.

Some links about the War Between the States (so-called Civil War) and Lincoln. See last link for the Constitution of the United States of America.

Excerpt: “Abraham Lincoln was “emphatically, the black man’s President,” wrote the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass in 1865, “the first to show any respect for their rights as men.” A decade later, however, in a speech at the unveiling of an emancipation monument in Washington, Douglass described Lincoln as “preeminently the white man’s President.” To his largely white audience on this occasion, Douglass declared that “you are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his step-children.”"