[central_va]

I suspect we'd have had a lot worse by now if it not for Lincoln's skill, wisdom and dedication to the Constitution.

I'll let your hero answer for me:

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and to form one that suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may make their own of such territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority intermingling with or near them who oppose their movement.

            Lincoln on the floor of Congress, 13 January 1848
            Congressional Globe, Appendix
            1st Session 30th Congress, page 94

[Non-Sequitur]

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and to form one that suits them better.

Show me where Lincoln guarantees them success? The South was inclined to rise up and shake off the existing government. They just didn't have the will or desire needed to succeed.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and to form one that suits them better.

South Carolina never shook off the existing government. They talked, they tried, but in the end they still were under the rightful supreme law of the land.

Lincoln upheld the law of revolution. He did not say anything about an American president being free to allow an illegal unconstitutional unilateral secession.