If the State loses its right to decide whether or not they abolish slavery , they lose their right to decide on other such controversial matters . Lincoln himself didn ' t even see the Civil War as a battle over abolishing slavery . While Lincoln was against the institution of slavery , he wasn ' t a true abolitionist . He felt that the blacks and whites were incompatible and deserved separate rights . That , the best option for the nation would be to either send them back or to send them out west . The Emancipation Proclaimation itself was a calculated military strategy to further undermine the Confederacy . It wasn ' t until the Union ' s victory in the Battle of Antietam in September of 1862 a year and a half after the Civil War began , that the Emancipation Proclaimation came to be .