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I don't put Lincoln on a pedastal. He was a flawed man who prosecuted a vicious war against his fellow Americans. To his credit, I guess, the southerners asked for war by betraying the democratic republic by throwing a tantrum and "stomping off" when they lost a presidential election. Lincoln did what he felt he had to do to hold the country together, and paid for his excesses with his life. My feelings of fury towards him are tempered by that reality.

Since many on this thread like to talk about "ifs" I think that if the south had stayed in the union, slavery would have eventually been abolished but they might have been compensated for the costs of their human property. And the south wouldn't have been destroyed by the war.