Editor,

Mr. Wilferth is, as ever, grammatically correct, but neither honest with facts nor logically coherent (“Lincoln was not devoted to ending slavery,” Nov. 5).

The aristocratic, slave-holding leaders of the Confederacy knew what Lincoln thought of slavery: “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery isn’t wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember I when I did not so think, and feel.” That’s why they tried to assassinate him before he could take office, and why some states seceded soon after his election. They also knew that he defended runaway slaves in court, and that the Republican Party was then the most anti-slavery of the three parties.

Lincoln did put the Union first, as Mr. Wilferth wrote, as a rock-solid personal belief, and as a tactic: Lincoln knew that he had won without

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