It is my opinion that Lincoln was a control freak, he would make a perfect demo'rat today, and shouldn't be included in the short list of greatest presidents.
Well, you're entitled to it.
Lincoln, like any other President, was a man not an angel.
I just look at the the situation he confronted and the stupid, cowardly or incompetent reactions of other statesmen.
Buchanan didn't do anything - just pretended there was no crisis.
Seward thought it would be a good idea to stir up a war with either France or Britain in the hopes that the South would forget about the crisis and unite with the unseceded states in a common front against the Europeans.
McClellan thought that he could reunite the country by waiting and whiling away the time drilling troops on the parade ground.
Lincoln was hard-nosed, singleminded and pursued his strategy of taking the fight to the CSA until his superior numbers and resources prevailed.
He threw everything he had at the problem and was not afraid to make mistakes as long as he was striving towards the goal.
And I don't think that Lincoln, like today's Democrats, would have tried to get permission from the French before aggressively going after terror. He would have gone after Al-Qaeda. He would have gone after Saddam Hussein.