The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was so despised by the North that it was openly defied and fomenting open rebellion in the North. Congress passed a horrible law as a compromise related to California's request to be admitted as a non-slave state. The South accused the North of not doing enough to recover their "property" and the citizens of the North were furious - on the verge of open rebellion against such a repugnant law. Lincoln believed that it was better to defeat slavery via a procedural process as a Union of states as opposed to a costly and bloody war. However, the Northern states would have been forced to repel the law or risk open rebellion against the Government of the North by their own citizens.
On the other hand, had Lincoln declared all slaves free, he would have started an immediate war. Eventually it became clear that the South would never get the unlimited status it wanted from Congress regarding slavery and there was war.
The war made any act of Congress or Lincoln to legislate a solution moot.
With a diplomatic solution no longer possible, Lincoln warned in 1862 that slavery was going to end and on Jan 1, 1863, Lincoln changed that status of slaves to free men with the emancipation proclamation - a relatively short time from the onset of the major battles of the war and a relatively short time after being elected.
A poster from Boston warning slaves at that time, the Fugitive Slave Act infuriated the North and open resistance to it infuriated the South:
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