Abraham Lincoln believed that slavery was bad completely and wanted to abolish it. When his election prompted the secession and the war started he made the emancipation proclamation which effectively free all slaves on the rebel territories and then later he was the creator of the 13th amendment which permanently outlawed slavery in all American territories.
Stephen Douglass believed that democracy should be the biggest way to solve the slavery issue. He wasn’t against slavery nor for it on a federal level, what he wanted was for the states to decide democratically through popular sovereignty and that the federal government would not interfere with their elections.
