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

I appreciate the debate topic. And I would like to preface the debate by saying any criticism that occurs in this debate is criticism waged at the argument and not my opponent personally. I promise not to engage in ad hominem attacks during the debate. Let’s begin the debate: First, let me say for Pro to win this argument, he must provide a convincing and probable reason as to why academic scholars, meaning historians with Ph. Ds. are wrong in their assessment of Presidential administrations, despite spending careers studying the matter. Con can demonstrate not only do scholars overwhelming rank Lincoln in the top positions, meaning he has rank 1st in most, 2nd and most others, and only once been 3rd. We are not talking about one or two historians but a large collection from both the left and right, etc. Pro essential argument must provide a reasonable explanation for why a reasonable person should not trust the accumulative weight of scholars surveyed on the matter, and why Pro has a better answer. Presidential ratings by academics of the legacy of President’s have placed Abraham Lincoln in #1 or #2 and only one time #3. Nate Silver at The New York Times recently compiled recent surveys by academic historians and Lincoln ranks within the first quintile. [1] Another poll asking historians based on political affiliation their top selection for Presidents on domestic, economic, and social issues and found the following: Rankings by Liberals and Conservatives[2] Rank Liberals (n=190) Conservatives (n=50) 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt Abraham Lincoln 2 Abraham Lincoln George Washington 3 George Washington Franklin D. Roosevelt 4 Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson 5 Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt 6 Woodrow Wilson Andrew Jackson 7 Andrew Jackson Harry S Truman 8 Harry S Truman Woodrow Wilson 9 Lyndon B. Johnson Dwight D. Eisenhower 10 John Adams John Adams . .. So far, Pro has not cited any information to support any claims or reasons or demonstrate a link between them and the overall proposition. Moreover, the first claim made by my opponent is, “To me, he is only well known and supported just because of the situation he was in, and that the union did win the war. ” That is just a personal statement based on personal conjecture, whose value might be more convincing if Pro was a Lincoln biographer or had a background and published articles in distinguished journals on these issues. “To me” statements cannot be disproven because they rely on the subjective state of person. For example, I could similar say something like, “To me, M&Ms are not as good as similar candy product, and the only reason M&Ms have been successful is because of the economy and an enormous advertising budget,” but this does not contribute to the debate, nor validate or substantiate the view itself. Okay, I’ll leave it there. Thanks for the debate. [1] Nate Silver, “Contemplating Obama’s Place in History, Statistically,” The New York Times. January 23, 2013. . http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com... [2] Robert K. Murray, Greatness in the White House: Rating the Presidents, from Washington Through Ronald Reagan (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 35. Wikipedia also provides their results as well. It can be found here: . http://en.wikipedia.org...