Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery is one of the central issues in American history. Lincoln often expressed moral opposition to slavery in public and private. Initially, he expected to bring about the eventual extinction of slavery by stopping its further expansion into any U.S. territory, and by proposing compensated emancipation (an offer Congress applied to Washington, D.C.) in his early presidency. Lincoln stood by the Republican Party's platform of 1860, which stated that slavery should not be allowed to expand into any more territories. Lincoln believed that the extension of slavery in new western lands would block "free labor on free soil", and he also wanted a peaceful, enduring end to slavery. As early as the 1850s, Lincoln was politically attacked as an abolitionist, but he d