Lincoln wasn't as great of a president as everyone thinks

I would like to start off by thanking you for the best argument I have ever been presented with in any debate or argument I have ever been in. I would also like to say that I have read your sources. Regarding the New York Times article, it does pose good evidence towards Con. It shows that Lincoln is ranked as number one out of any president, and even received 91% for his reelection. The ranking of number one does show that historians favored Lincoln over any other president. The same article also shows that there is confusion on the rankings. "I recognize this might be an unpopular position, but one can ask if there is some inconsistency here: whether Kennedy has been ranked so highly based more on his potential than his actual accomplishments. No, there is no presidential equivalent to Value Over Replacement Player, the baseball statistic that accounts for both the quality of a player"s performance and the amount of time that he served. (I"d nominate Millard Fillmore as the presidential equivalent of Mario Mendoza). But the presidential scholars do implicitly seem to be applying something like that standard: Harrison, who accomplished almost literally nothing, is not regarded as average but instead as the fourth-worst president. (Put another way, only three presidents" accomplishments are regarded as having been worse than nothing.) If that is the measure, it is hard to see how Kennedy is ranked similarly to Dwight D. Eisenhower by the historians, when Eisenhower had a very popular and productive presidency and served for almost three times as long." Of course this is not an official position, but rather the thoughts of the article writer. On the scale a pattern appears for presidents during war time, where those presidents all received rankings lower than 15. George Washington (Revolutionary War): 3, James Madison (War of 1812): 15, Abraham Lincoln (Civil War): 1, Woodrow Wilson (World War One): 7, Franklin D. Roosevelt (World War Two): 2, Harry S Truman (Korean War): 6, Lyndon B. Johnson (Vietnam War): 12. Out of these examples all of them were reelected. According to the list the presidents who were considered to have done nothing all ranked low on the list. The pattern shown is that war time will boost favor for some one seeking reelection. The two presidents following Lincoln both scored poorly. As for Grant he was still faced with rebuilding the nation. His abilities and performance during this was why he didn't score highly. Lincoln never had to face this because he was assassinated, so there is no way of knowing how he would have faired in the reconstruction of the country. As we also see with FDR, his favor, while his administration did well during the war, was also due to the fact that during the war voters did not want to risk electing some one they did not know while they already know the abilities of the current president. Of course, I have no sources myself. Everything I have used was either from your sources, what I learned in school, and some of it is my opinions and thoughts (which, yes, I know should not be included in a debate). I also cannot argue with 70 plus historians, seeing as how my furthest form of education was the completion of high school.