(LE) Unjust,, AND Bad Policy

One hint that Lincoln may have had a nuanced sense of moral-theoretical issues -- and that he grasped a plurality of moral principles -- is this line in his joint protest with Dan Stone of the legislature's condemnation of abolitionism in 1837:

"...that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy..."

Here Lincoln alleges that justice, a deontological notion owing as much to Aristotle as to Kant, aligns (as it may not always do) with the pragmatic, Millian consequences of policy.