“And yet Lincoln sent armies in motion against secession and brought the North to victory. That matters far more than what Lincoln said in favor of a right of secession.”
And you believe that is his statement about secession? You might want to look at the financial side of the situation, namely railroads and his ties to them and how the South figured into it all. Lincoln was one corrupt lawyer.
And slaveholders dominated the secession movement and the Confederacy. They dragged the South into a devastating and losing war in the hope of continuing to own people as their property. So who is the worse: Mr. Lincoln, the railroad lawyer become President, or slaveholders who resorted to the lash, chains, secession, and war to deny freedom to other human beings?