Qaddify is dong this to keep power. Lincoln did it to keep the Union together.
That is the difference.
That certainly sounds like a morally lofty motive, sufficiently believable to generate the money for his memorial, and the superficial understanding of generations of historians..
Before Lincoln initiated the invasion of Charleston and Pensacola in April of 1861, he remarked on several occasions that he could not let the tariff revenue stop.
Tariff revenue financed over 90% of the US Treasury, and the vast majority of that was underpinned by Southern exports.
The Southern states seceded peacefully. The only reason that Lincoln initiated war was the competition of Charleston and New Orleans shipping (plus the power of the Mississippi trade supply routes to the Midwest) to northern ports.
If you review the history, you will find that several Northern governors were visiting Lincoln's office just days before he ordered the Union fleets to the southern ports, and guaranteeing their militias and money to help New York, Boston, and Providence survive the free trade that was about to be established without them.
“Maintaining the union” was a euphemism for saving their financial structure......and a vast misrepresentation of the cause of death of 600,000.
The bigger the memorial, the greater the lie.