The KKK was the militant fascist arm of the Democrats. They murdered Republicans who came to the South to explain to the freed slaves about their right to vote. It was dangerous. The South always had more Abolitionists then the North did. No other country fought a Civil War to free its slaves. Lincoln wrought carnage upon the whole nation. Slavery would have eventually fizzled out as poor White people voices grew louder that they wanted work and that with slaves they were relegated to begging for employment in the towns or which being small in those days could only hire a few White people now and then for piecemeal work. Instead of waging war, Lincoln could have spent all that money and bought the slaves freedom. The Union Army was not any friend of the slave either. The war was a states rights issue cluttered by the facade of ending slavery as Lincoln himself admits. "If I could save this Union and not free any slaves, I would do it."
This is all correct, kkk is leftist, but your quote at the end is out of context. The full quote doesn't really change the concept that he didn't care less about slavery, but it gives a convoluted picture of the dude to just put a tidbit.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.