Jesus' sacrifice was accomplished once, for all. No Fallen Man born of Adam can ever emulate the Sacrifice of His Atoning Death; you are absolutely right that it would be gross sacrilege and hubris for any other Mortal Man to imagine of himself any such thing.
However, in terms of His incarnate demonstration of a Moral Life, the Bible does recommend that Christians seek to follow His example:
This is not to say that Christians will, or even can, themselves be perfect exemplars of Jesus' teachings -- God knows I'm not. But it is the "Ideal" by which we should judge our own Actions, and also those Actions which we delegate to our Political Rulers.
The Founders of the USA (even Christians, as most of them were), made a lot of Immoral Compromises in order to permit the continuation of Un-Biblical Racist Slavery in the South -- the sort of Immoral Compromises which, I think, Jesus Christ would not have tolerated Himself. I can admit that.
But that being said, I likewise cannot see Jesus ordering the Deaths of 600,000 young Americans -- in order to collect Lincoln's Tariffs.
No. I just CANNOT see the "Morality" of such an Action.
When you think of the death of the 600,000 Americans, ask yourself, who killed them. Rather a lot were killed by rebel fire. I have a hard time blaming that on Lincoln.
Approximately 65% of the Americans killed in the UnCivil War were indeed Northern youths cut down by Confederate fire, and you are right that every single one of their deaths was a tragedy.
So why were the Confederates shooting? After all, most of them were just "poor white trash" who had never owned Slaves in the first place.
Figuring that he did not own slaves, nor had much interest in the constitutional question of secession, they asked him: "What are you fighting for, anyhow?"
The Confederate replied: "I'm fighting, because you're down here!"
(http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1518756,00.html)
According to his own declarations in his First Inaugural, Lincoln was NOT willing to invade the South for the purpose of Freeing the Slaves (which would have at least been Noble in Purpose, even if bloodily Extreme in Ardor); rather, Lincoln ordered the most murderous, most devastating, most fratricidal War in American history -- in order to Collect Federal Tariffs.
Good grief. What an utterly damn worthless and stupid reason to run up Billions of dollars in Debt and get 600,000 young Americans killed.
I suppose it's possible that Woodrow Wilson was the #1 worst of all American Presidents, making the world safe for Communism and Nazism; but if the gold medal goes to the President who got the most Americans killed and wasted the most money, then Lincoln's definitely got a shot at the title.
The Navy was dispatched the Navy to collect taxes from Rhode Island when the other states had accepted the Constitution, and before Rhode Island had.
Taxes are part of what funded the government. If you consider the very very low tax rates, well, I wish our tax rates were that low.
The war was made by the South. Ask them why they began it. It seems, in my research, to have a great deal with preserving Slavery. Tariffs were a distintly secondary area of contention.
How did the Confederates fund their pseudo-government? Did they collect taxes? Do tell?