Villify Lincoln and prepare to be called a racist. Libs find that to be thier easiest defense against reason or truth.
Really I'm not out to villify the man (I do think he wasn't a very good person but I'll try to leave my judgments out of it) or play character assassination, just to tell the truth. But yeah, someone's going to be thinking that. Oh well screw 'em, I'm telling the truth as best as I know it and that's nothing to apologize for.
I sometimes wish I were anything but a white person, and this is one of those times. If I were black and delivered this same message, people would have a much harder time ignoring it. Que sera sera (spelling).
That said by contemporary standards Lincoln is not the hero many would make him out to be. But how can he be judged fairly without being judged by the standards of the times in which he lived. The founders of the greatest nation on earth would be judged as terrorists, evil slave owning land barons, tax cheats etc by contemporary standards.
That is true, but my criticism of the man has mostly to do with the fact that he's so damned inconsistent. The same man who tried to argue that black people have rights even though they might be thought of as inferior is the same man who drafted a provision for slavery for the Florida state consituition. The same man who was once a proud atheist quietly put those beliefs aside when it was to his political advantage.
Lincoln was a shrewd politician, and if you look at his political career, he was always interested in advancing his side or his faction, and little else.
But all that aside, people need to know the truth, that they've been revering a fictional character in American history.
And quite frankly when I look at how out of control the fed gov is now, I am not so sure it's a good thing the North won, but that's all speculation. I think the Civil War is vastly more complicated than Good Guys v. Bad Guys.