You might be interested to know that Lincoln put his signature on the Thirteenth Amendment, even though it wasn’t required. It was his sincere desire that his name be on it. Of course it was after his untimely demise that it passed, with his name on it.
This is incorrect. President Buchanan signed the Join Resolution of Congress called the Corwin Amendment. Lincoln signed a cover letter, attached it to the Joint Resolution, and sent it to the Governors of all of the States.
If it hadn’t been for his passing, it wouldn’t have been ratified. If it hadn’t been for the disenfranchisement of southerners who took up arms, it also wouldn’t have passed. Then it would have been down to the usual political wrangling, and with or without his signature, the same conflicting factions would have made sure it went nowhere.
The Civil War wasn’t fought on purely altruistic grounds on the one hand, nor purely to preserve slavery on the other. Nobody fights a war over a single issue. There are always ulterior motives, corruption and lies. Somebody gets rich off the bloodshed, and afterwards the victor paints an altruistic face on what was really an ugly business. But slavery was definitely at or near the heart of all the commercial interests that lead to war, and those interests were erased by the ruin that Sherman wrought marching through the South, burning and looting. No more king cotton or warehouse act politics, and no more slavery, either.
For an interesting read, I’d suggest Lin Yutang’s A Moment In Peking, the history of an upper-class Beijing family From the Boxer’s Rebellion through WW II, especially the passages where he describes the conditions leading to war with Japan.
Most dictators put their names on their diktats.
His armies "ratified" that Amendment.