If you can show a connection between Lincoln and any of those other things, I have no objection to him getting credit for them.
What I don't think you are grasping is the fact that our Clever Liberal Lawyer President from Illinois took us into uncharted waters. He took us to a destination that was predicted by the Anti-Federalists when they were trying to argue against ratification of the US Constitution, and that our deviation from the normal rule of law has had very bad consequences is simply glossed over by the cheerleaders for the side that won.
The Declaration of Independence says that people clearly have a right to leave a government that no longer suits their interests. This foundational document is well understood, and the claim it makes is clear and unambiguous.
But where is the clear recourse in American law to forcing people to remain in the Union? What significant proclamation is there in any of our founding documents that argues such a thing is reasonable or proper?
Lincoln said he embarked on war to "Preserve the Union", but where does it say in the Constitution that he has a clear duty to preserve it against the will of those states that voluntarily joined it? And even if you could find something that can be twisted into meaning that the President had a duty to "preserve the union", how can you square it against the natural law principle we assert in establishing our own legitimacy independent of the British Union?
In a contest of reason and morals between the Declaration of Independence, and the second of our Operating charters, I would say the document which created the nation and therefore empowered the authority by which the other was created, ought to be the stronger Legal/Moral claim.
How can something be more authoritative than the document which gave us our own independence?
Perhaps the British should have had one of those, and they could have avoided all the "unpleasantness." Who knew that all the British needed was a "constitution" and that could have nipped the whole "independence" thing in the bud?
Obviously our founders would have written their appeal to "nature and nature's God" and then someone would have pointed out "Whoa boys, the Brits have one of them there "Constitutions", and so we have no moral claim to leave now."
If only the Brits knew.
And, you weren't there to warn him. You must feel terribly guilty.