Although Julian did not dislike Lincoln personally, he opposed the president's policies, which were more moderate than his own. Lincoln's objective was to preserve the Union, while Julian's primary goal was to abolish slavery. Julian was among the radical Republicans who feared that Lincoln would not issue the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. "But he saw no way of escape," Julian wrote in his memoirs. "The demand for such an edict was wide-spread and rapidly extending in the Republican party ... It was in yielding to pressure that he finally became the liberator of the slaves through the triumph of our arms which it ensured."