Abraham Lincoln was one of the worst presidents

To get this out of the way, Andrew Jackson was a protectionist that destroyed the banking industry in America. He should have let any state that wanted to secede secede. But this is not a debate about Jackson, but it is a debate about Lincoln… "One of the worst", is a very general response, I will agree. I just mean that in the course of America's history, Lincoln was a very bad chapter. He did more wrong for the country than he did good, and some of the areas that he did wrong in were in my above statements. I hope you have a better sense of what I'm trying to get at. Hopefully you do or you wouldn't have taken the argument. There have been presidents that have done nothing and there are presidents that have done good things. All of those presidents did some things wrong and some things right. The difference is how the country was after their terms, and only by their influences. The country could have been in shambles after Lincoln and that didn't mean he was a bad president; it just meant that there was a war and things were completely fixed after his tenure. But I do not hold to that statement. Lincoln did leave the country in shambles and it was because of him, namely, that the country was in shambles. The only way that Lincoln made the GOP strong was in gaining the support of the African American vote. And today that is the democratic vote. He gained the AA's vote by making them free of slavery. I am a Republican in the truest sense of the word. Political parties are good for today, but they are not absolutely necessary. What is necessary is correct philosophical thinking on what government should be and what it shouldn't be. It doesn't matter what political party understands that. Lincoln did nothing to strengthen America if he strengthened a political party that advocates first-strike policies, protectionist foreign-trade tariffs, lower taxes on only the rich, reformed campaign finance, and elects John McCain as a spokesperson. (The last one was a joke, kind of…maybe not…) I find nothing worthy in stoking a fire that will burn the house instead of heat the inhabitants. The Constitution says nothing about keeping the states together. We were united because we wanted to be. The word ‘united' wasn't even capitalized in the original Constitution. The founding fathers agreed that we were the States of America and that we were united. It was an adjective, not a title. The states should have the right to secede, if they feel that the government is not doing its job or is taking its job too far. That is in the Constitution. We did the same thing to become a nation. Now we as a public have this warped view that the government is there to do all these things for us. The number one employer in America is the government! How is that not a sign of socialism to come! We were started on this path before Lincoln, but we were thrust hard on the path by Lincoln. Lincoln was a fascist and we are now because of his strengthening of the ‘Republic.' He called it a Republic all the time because that is how he leaned the public to agree with him, definition of fascism. The coercion in Lincoln's voice is still repeated today by innocent fifth graders learning the Gettysburg Address by heart. Lincoln's disregard for the Constitution was what led us to the Civil War and to the biggest loss of life in war in this country's history. Presidents vow to obey the Constitution, not destroy it. I base my argument on that Abraham Lincoln disregarded the constitution, thus we incurred the loss of thousands of innocent soldiers, liberties such as freedom of speech were abolished in the name of keeping the nation together in a time of war (sounds similar, excuse me, sounds exactly like what Hitler and Mussolini told Germany and Italy), the debt of America grew tremendously because of financing the war, the dollar grew tremendously weak because of counterfeiting by the government (first paper dollars were made by Lincoln), and the economy of America suffered a recession because of the instant loss of an industry. The free market was not allowed to work to get rid of the slaves, thus the market suffered when it was tampered with by Lincoln. Many presidents have disregarded the Constitution, but there are only a few more that have had as little respect for it as Old Abe. As a sidebar, my killing argument was about the public hangings that Lincoln ordered for people that spoke out against the war. Too bad they don't do that today. Let's lethal inject every single registered democrat that doesn't support the Iraq war, oh wait, I forgot. It hasn't been officially declared a war by Congress, so they can talk all they want. Oh yeah, Congress never declared war on the ‘South' either. War is only a last response that very rarely needs to happen. I defend good things everyday by going to class, speaking out against the war in Iraq, defending my faith, and none of these are done by war, but my tolerance. We have to let people do what they want to do. That is the only way we are going to be able to get along in this world. This is my first debate so take it easy on me...LOL