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Does the phony Obama hold as his hero, Lincoln? He has done many things that smacks of imperialism.

Is this the reason Abe’s tormented soul is reputed to be haunting the White House still? Can’t he can’t find peace after what he did? More people died in the Civil War than in all other U.S. wars, combined, and their blood and the violations of the Constitution, are on his hands.

Perhaps Obama keeps bumping into Lincoln's ghost in the halls of the White Hut during the night.

IbJensen quoting Robert Johansen: "Anyone who embarks on a study of Abraham Lincoln … must first come to terms with the Lincoln myth.
The effort to penetrate the crust of legend that surrounds Lincoln … is both a formidable and intimidating task."

The total of books written on Lincoln is circa 16,000.
So it's hard to imagine that any actual facts about Lincoln are now unknown.
Of course the imaginations of Licoln-haters are endlessly creating new propaganda against him.

Stacked books on Lincoln:

From Dwyer's article: "One growing consensus regarding Lincoln seems credible: He has exerted more influence over the development of this nation than any other person, including the Founders.
If Washington be the father of our country, surely Lincoln is its stepfather."

For good or evil, Lincoln is not guilty as alleged.
Our Founders wrote into their Constitution provisions for fighting rebellion, insurrection, "domestic violence", invasions and wars declared against the United States.

All Founders consistently opposed secession "at pleasure", meaning secession without mutual consent or material cause such as oppression and injury.

In the New England secession crisis of 1814, Founder and President Madison moved US troops from their wartime posts near Canada to Albany, NY, ready to oppose New England's secession.

In the Nullification crisis of 1832, President and Revolutionary War veteran Andrew Jackson wrote about a "right of secession":

"To say that any state may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States are not a nation, because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offense.

Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression;
but to call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution or incur the penalties consequent on a failure."

Jackson also wrote to South Carolinians:

"I will go to South Carolina and hang the first secessionist I see from the first tree I can reach."

Point is: in opposing secession, insurrection, rebellion, "domestic violence", invasion and declared war against the United States, President Lincoln did nothing more than what was first established by our Founders and previous precedent.

So Lincoln was a child of the American Revolution, not its "stepfather".

from Dwyer's article: "The real Lincoln proved the truth of that claim within days of the April 12, 1861 attack on Fort Sumter.
In fact, the attack might have been avoided if he had not decided to reinforce Sumter."

So, already, in his first sentences, Dwyer starts in with the Neo-Confederate propaganda lies.

First, Lincoln did not decide to "reinforce Sumter".
What he sent was resupplies -- i.e., food -- with instructions there would be no reinforcements landed if there was no assault on Sumter.
And, Lincoln formally notified South Carolina's Governor Pickens.
But Pickens, by now in a state of war-frenzy, demanded the Confederate President assault Fort Sumter, and Davis issued necessary military orders.

The key point to grasp here is that, regardless of how constitutional or unconstitutional slave-state unilateral declarations of secession may or may not have been, they did not cause Civil War.

And, under any legal definition, the Confederacy's forceful seizure of Federal military properties such as Fort Sumter, were both unlawful and acts of war against the United States.

from Dwyer's article: "On April 13, he declared the seceding states in a condition of rebellion and called for 75,000 troops to deal with them — a declaration expressly reserved to Congress by the Constitution:
“The Congress shall have the power … To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” "

First of all, can we all recognize this argument as Alinsky's Rule #4?

RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”

Second, as with most propaganda, the allegation is false, because the Constitution specifically requires the President "...shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed..."

Those laws, referred to in Lincoln's "Proclamation Calling Militia and Convening Congress, April 15, 1861" include: the 1790's era Militia Acts which specifically authorize actions to suppress:

"combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings..."

Finally in context of this subject, we should probably also comment on

“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”

To be effective, these particular Neo-Confederate claims, that Lincoln acted unconstitutionally, depend on people not understanding that in the 1790s, Congress passed, and President Washington first used, the Militia Acts which President Lincoln referred to in his April 15, 1861 declaration.

Dwyer's article: "On April 27, he began the unprecedented act of suspending the constitutional right of habeas corpus."

The US Constitution specifically authorizes:

"Article One, Section 9 'The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.' "

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in specific circumstances, while Congress was not in session.
When Congress returned, it debated those actions at length, but never seriously considered revoking or censuring what Lincoln did.
Eventually, Congress lawfully authorized Lincoln's actions.

deported Ohio Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham for opposing his domestic policies (especially protectionist tariffs and income taxation) on the floor of the House of Representatives

This is factually incorrect.

Vallandigham was gerrymandered out of his House seat, and was not in office when he gave (in OH, not DC) the speech that got him arrested.

The well-meaning but eternally bumbling General Burnside arrested him without Lincoln's knowledge.

He was arrested not for anything to do with domestic policies but for seditious antiwar talk.

Similar public speaking would have gotten the speaker arrested during WWII.

from Dwyer's article: "On May 3, he called up thousands more troops — for three-year hitches — another act the law did not authorize the president to commit."

Lincoln's action, while Congress was not in session, called for volunteers.
Nobody was forced to enlist.
Lincoln specifically recognized this in declaring:

"The call for volunteers hereby made and the direction for the increase of the Regular Army and for the enlistment of seamen hereby given, together with the plan of organization adopted for the volunteer and for the regular forces hereby authorized, will be submitted to Congress as soon as assembled.

"In the meantime I earnestly invoke the cooperation of all good citizens in the measures hereby adopted for the effectual suppression of unlawful violence, for the impartial enforcement of constitutional laws, and for the speediest possible restoration of peace and order, and with these of happiness and prosperity, throughout our country."

When Congress returned, it supported everything Lincoln had done.

from Dwyer's article: "Each one of these acts — and many more soon to follow — violated the U.S. Constitution.
The majority of the U.S. public supported him, however, as the American people have supported other presidents since, when they felt the need to break the Constitution 'for the public good.' "

More constitutionally important than public support, Congress had authority and endorsed the President's actions in every respect.
Congress did not insist, in the face of national emergency, that Lincoln follow every constitutional procedure before acting.
Where-ever it felt necessary, Congress passed authorizing legislation, after the fact.

from Dwyer's article: "Whether or not Congress would have declared war on the South as had Lincoln, it now saw no choice but to fight."

Complete propaganda.

First of all, nobody -- not Lincoln, not Congress, no northern state government -- ever "declared war" on secessionists.

The reason is simple: a formal declaration of war is normally restricted to actions between independent nations, not rebellions, insurrections, uprisings (think Indian wars), or "domestic violence" within a nation.
Northerners did not consider the self-declared Confederacy an independent nation, thus no formal declaration of war.

And for those same reasons, the Confederacy was eager to formally declare war against the United States (May 6, 1861) -- because that helped establish the fact of their independence.

Of course one problem is: once you've started and formally declared war on the United States, how can you then claim the status of "innocent victim"?

Second, all of Lincoln's actions were fully supported, indeed demanded by, Congress and the Northern public.
Yes, everybody wanted some peaceful resolution of the crisis, but they also wanted the laws enforced and the Union preserved.
And that's what Lincoln set about to do.

If you are against the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, waterbording, drone strikes, and death lists, we can have a discussion about Lincoln and civil rights. If you're not, though, you accept the basic principle that countries and governments do have a right to protect themselves, so there's not that much to argue about.

Secessionists and Confederates accepted the basic principle as well. Jefferson Davis didn't regard the states in his union as divisible and didn't have much sympathy for minority rights when they undercut his rule. The rights of the African-American minority certainly didn't exist for him.

He didn't stop short of suspending habeus corpus or imprisoning hostile journalists. Davis didn't like it when such tactics were applied to his own supporters in union areas, but he accepted the principle.

Nor were supporters of secession, the Confederacy, and state's rights great opponents of imperialism or great supporters of Indian rights, as the Mexican War and the "Trail of Tears" indicate. Consequently, I suggest giving the whole "Tyrant Lincoln" thing a rest -- at least until we figure out a way around these inconvenient facts.

from Dwyer's article: "Even Massachusetts’ Senator Charles Sumner, one of the spearheads of the Radical postwar Reconstruction and certainly no friend of the South, said:
“When Lincoln reinforced Sumter and called for 75,000 men without the consent of Congress, it was the greatest breach ever made in the Constitution, and would hereafter give the President the liberty to declare war whenever he wished, without the consent of Congress.” "

I can't find a source or context for this quote, but...
Massachusetts' Senator Charles Sumner was your typical radical abolitionists Republican who suffered possibly the first serious casualty of the Civil War, on May 22, 1856, when beaten unconscious by South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks on the Senate floor.
Sumner's injuries took two years to fully recover, and probably scared him mentally against any future sympathy for the southern slave-power.

President Lincoln considered Sumner a valuable adviser, though did not always take Sumner's advice.

Sumner was a powerful figure in Congress and post-war tangled bitterly with President Ulysses Grant, over especially Grant's plan to annex Santa Domingo, now Dominican Republic.
Sumner opposed what he saw as American imperialism.
When "President Grant sent in the U.S. Navy to keep the Dominican Republic free from invasion and civil war,... such military action was controversial since the naval protection was unauthorized by the U.S. Congress."

So I'm guessing this could be the context of Sumner's words condemning presidential power to intervene militarily without Congressional approval.

The problem with Sumner's words quoted above: Sumner was factually wrong.
From the very beginning of the Republic, every president, including Founders, used the military in many instances short of all-out declared war, with and without congressional authorizations.

Here is a listing of major military operations since 1775.

So Lincoln's actions were no more "unconstitutional" than those others, were clearly in accord with Founders Original Intent and with previous historical precedent.