How can anyone say Lincoln was a good President?

He killed more americans than any other pesident in US history (this fact alone should be enough). He destroyed the economies in the South causing massive poverty %26amp; hyperinflation. He expanded the federal gov't %26amp; suspended Habeus Corpus. He would lock individuals up war crimes if they spoke out against his policies. What is American history really teaching us by putting Lincoln on this god-like pedistal. Is it teaching our kids that good presidents are dictating war pigs?|||I guess because Lincoln saved the Union and yes it was a very bloody affair which very few people would have had the character to see through to the end. (And in his defense if George McClellan was even half the General that McClellan himself thought he was then the Civil War would have ended at Antietam saving thousands of lives and would have averted the wholesale destruction of Atlanta and other southern cities on Sherman's march to the sea. But then would you have to ask yourself: Would President Lincoln have issued the Emancipation Proclamation when he did and with the same or a different set of particulars?)





So saving the Union and freeing African-American slaves would seem to be two reasons to honor President Lincoln unless you think this country would have been better off as a Northern U.S.A. and a Southern U.S.A. with slavery lawfully permitted in the one country and not in the other. It most certainly would have changed world history with two differing foreign policies emanating from the America's and different alliances and two armies and navies and ultimately two air forces poised to attack the other. Would we have intervened in either WW1 or WW2. What about the wars in Korea and Vietnam? Would all of China and India and Southeast Asia now be controlled by Japan. Would Europe and Russia and the UK and Africa be controlled by Nazi Germany. And, if so, would the two United States, Canada, Mexico, central and South America still exist or would they have formed a new mega-government to defend themselves from Germany and Japan.





It's very hard to say what our future might have become absent Lincoln's presidency, but you might try to do some basic calculations of how it might well have gone badly for future generations of Americans and Europeans and Asians, et cetera, if Lincoln had not preserved this Union.





I will say that Lincoln was a good President. I will go even further and say that Lincoln was our most essential President, excluding George Washington for obvious reasons, when you consider the arc of American and world history after our Civil War.





You might go to the library and get several wide ranging and well written books that cover the history of America and the world after Lincoln. Then you might ponder how the future might have been without Lincoln and, if you give him some due, then even you might find a rational basis for concluding that his presidency was probably a very good thing for America and the world. (And if you conclude otherwise, I will be pleased to read your book which argues for that interpretation.)





Happy Presidents Day!|||troll|||He also helped abolish slavery. Yeah, he's a real jerk.|||The freed slaves liked him. I don't want to see slavery come about again.|||So you would rather that we have slavery?!|||He was one of the greatest presidents of the United States! What are you talking about??|||That our souls are more important than our safety or our money.|||Uh-huh...





You do realize the Southern States formed their own Army and Navy, a separate government, first and then attacked federal installations, unprovoked...|||One year after the end of the Civil War, the southern states were producing more cotton than they had prior to the war. The Civil War did a lot of things, but it did not destroy the economy of the South.|||I wouldn't necessarily say that he is on a god-like pedestal because, come on now, HE'S ON THE PENNY, which usually turns a disgusting brown color after a few years, unlike any other coin, I personally don't care for Lincoln for many reasons stated above and more, what I dont understand is why Martin Luther king's B-day gets celebrated and people get days off and crap, when Ben Franklin's Birthday is in the same month, and should be celebrated instead, way more worthy of it than MLK for sure, but, hey, I guess we'll never know.|||Hmmmm...another idiot newbie account. Big surprise there.