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When you say "most of us", that includes you.

Not necessarily. The "us" in this sentence referred to Americans as a group. The phrase "most of us" implies that "some of us" Americans don't feel that way.

Who centralized it? disHonest Abe and the damn yankee coven.

I've reviewed the history on this, and you've made no real attempt to prove my analysis wrong. The centralization of the Civil War was 90% reversed when the war ended. For decades after the war the government wasn't much more centralized or intrusive in American life than before the war. The Progressive Era, WWI, the New Deal, WWII, the Cold War and the Great Society have been far more important than the transitory centralization established by Lincoln.

In fact, all advanced societies have become more centralized during this period. There is no logical reason to assume the US would have been immune to this trend if Lincoln had never lived, except of course there would be no US today, with at least two independent and quite possibly hostile countries occupying its territory.

While Lincoln established a precedent that was not positive in all areas, by no stretch of the imagination is our present condition something he caused or would have approved.

Let me try an imperfect analogy. Let's assume I have gangrene. Left untreated it will kill me in short order. Antibiotics aren't working, so the docs cut off my leg.

Do you think it would be appropriate for me to harshly criticize the doctors who saved my life because now I am a cripple?

Secession was in the process of killing the United States. Lincoln employed harsh measures to save its life. Arguably some of those measures were overly harsh and some may not have been necessary. But the more I study the period the more I realize how very near a thing it war. The USA survived by the skin of its teeth, although it was a somewhat different society and government that emerged from the surgery.

I truly believe Lincoln was the only man who had what it took to save the USA from disintegration, and I am profoundly grateful that he did.

there would be no US today, with at least two independent and quite possibly hostile countries occupying its territory.

Well, now I believe your wrong. But I guess that's easy to do in the realm of what might have been. I think had the war ended after say Gettysburg, with the south gaining it's independence the U.S. and C.S.A. would shortly have become sister countries with each having the others back. The south would have been forced to deal with an end to slavery, cause that genie was out of the box never to return. But as for how long the two countries would have remained close allies I cannot imagine. The U.S. without the south's stabilizing influence to offset the communist tendency's of the Northeast goes beyond my poor ability's to imagine.

The phrase "most of us" implies that "some of us" Americans don't feel that way.

Then you should have rephrased it to something like, "The majority of Americans are happy with the way things are going, in my opinion."

I've reviewed the history on this, and you've made no real attempt to prove my analysis wrong.

You must have done your research in the Library for the Politically Correct.

Lincoln's intentions, as well as that of many northern politicians, were summarized by Stephen Douglas during the presidential debates. Douglas accused Lincoln of wanting to "impose on the nation a uniformity of local laws and institutions and a moral homogeneity dictated by the central government" that "place at defiance the intentions of the republic's founders." Douglas was right, and Lincoln's vision for our nation has now been accomplished beyond anything he could have possibly dreamed.

Let me try an imperfect analogy. Let's assume I have gangrene. Left untreated it will kill me in short order. Antibiotics aren't working, so the docs cut off my leg. Do you think it would be appropriate for me to harshly criticize the doctors who saved my life because now I am a cripple?

Interesting analogy. Let me try to put it in context of the War of Northern Agression.

The USA was sick. The South recognized the sickness and attempted to remove itself from the infected area. But old Doc Abe interceded and refused to let the South cut out the infected areas thereby making the entire body of the USA sick and eventually killing the form of government created by the founders.

There. Fixed it.

I truly believe Lincoln was the only man who had what it took to save the USA from disintegration, and I am profoundly grateful that he did.