Abraham Lincoln was one of the worst presidents

A civil uprising and a civil war are two different things. Gandhi rebuked Indians that used violence to advocate freedom from the British. He understood that there should be no bloodshed for peace and freedom. Civil wars are not necessary at all. This is nothing less than what a war mongrel would say. I think that it is just for the slaves to be free. Lincoln just made the wrong decision in how to deal with that. Slavery would have been eliminated in the few short years because of new inventions in slave industries. You are so concerned with the long term. In the long term, the states would have been better off without a civil war. They would have been better off if they were able to make their own decisions instead of federal mandates. The federal government getting in the states' affairs again. The same way that abortion could be defeated would be to let the states decide on the mandates. Not have the federal government do it. Let the people decide. Something else I find interesting is that in all the major civil wars that you are talking or, I bet, thinking about, the sect seceding was the victor. The people seceding from the government in charge was the group that was in the right and was the group that just wanted to decide things for themselves and make their own decisions, even if those decisions were not always right. There was no compromise. The South lost and the North won. That is what happened. Abraham Lincoln was saying that he knew what was best for the states, when he made federal mandates that were imposed on the states. These were again unfunded mandates. Without the industry that the slaves brought in, in the short term, the states suffered massive recessions. The people in those states suffered greatly, whether they were for or against slavery. ‘ You can't say that saying that judging Lincoln on his actions is an unjust way to judge him. It is the only way. We can argue over whether his actions were just, which is what we are attempting to do, but his ‘justness' is only described by his action. It doesn't matter if people do what they think is right if it is still wrong. Good intentions are not good enough. He has to know how to run the country correctly in order to be a good president. If you look around at the world today, we are in a 9 trillion dollar debt, have the weakest currency we have ever had, are in a recession, have troops out across the world advocating your so called ‘civil wars', which have to happen, yet the war in Iraq is not necessary to hold up freedoms for those people. You are the one who needs to follow their logic. You claim that civil war and bloodshed is necessary but are against the civil war in Iraq. Yes I know that is not why we went in there, but nevertheless, it is still a civil war against the dictatorial government of that country. States are closer to the people they represent. They can make more informed decisions about what their constituents want, than can the federal government. I am more concerned with states than with the national government, because the states know what is better for them than do people all the way in Washington. And even if they make wrong decisions, let them make wrong decisions. Parents do this all the time with kids. They let them make the wrong decision, so that it is not made again. Justice is what we all should be advocating for. We just seem to disagree on how that is best attained. Hopefully we both have a better understanding of each other's position and see that which one more closely reflects justice. Thanks, good luck