I was just talking about Lincoln with a friend. If you're bored sometime, look at one of Lincoln's speeches and replace "union" with "empire" - it still works! "Our most sacred American empire must not be divided... these rebels may not be allowed to break the spirit of the empire..."

And for the record, I like Lincoln - but he's easily, easily the most imperial-minded president in U.S. history. It's a shame we don't call it for what it is - the Confederate secession was by-the-books legal, the south became a separate sovereign country, and the north went and conquered them. And yet, I think it was the right call.

Every American should read Lincoln's first inauguration address. Basically everything school teaches about Lincoln is wrong. Here's his own words:

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

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"There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up" their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?"

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Here's Lincoln's part about the union being preserved, his argument is that the American union is older than the Constitution and comes before it (a crazy argument never used before or since):

"Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."

But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity."
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And here's my swapping out of "empire" for "Union" -

"But if destruction of the Empire by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Empire is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity." - It still works.

And mind you, I like Lincoln. He made the right call. But saying the Civil War was about slavery is like saying World War II was about coal. I mean, it kind of sort of was in a very tortured way, but that's a very incomplete understanding. Lincoln was very pro-slavery in his first inauguration address, and threated the South with war to preserve the empire if they tried to leave. They thought he was bluffing. He wasn't. Every American should read that first inauguration address, it's Lincoln's own words. Your view of the American Civil War will never be the same afterwards.