There's not a nickel's worth of difference in what Washington, Madison, Jackson and Lincoln thought about the Constitution and Union. And consider this:
"That the United States form, for many, and for most important purposes, a single nation, has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people. In making peace, we are one people. In all commercial regulations, we are one and the same people. In many other respects, the American people are one; and the government which is alone capable of controlling and managing their interests in all these respects, is the government of the Union. It is their government and in that character, they have no other. America has chosen to be, in many respects, and in many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes, her government is complete; to all these objects it is competent. The people have declared that in the exercise of all powers given for these objects, it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory.
The constitution and laws of a state, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of of the United States are absolutely void. These states are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empire--for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate."
--Chief Justice John Marshall, writing the majority opinion, Cohens v. Virginia 1821
Lincoln helped preserve the government set up by the framers of the COnstitution.
Our govcernment will work fine whenever honorable men run it.
Walt
One fact IS certain: Lincoln's actions ushered in the death of the Constitution and laid the foundation for the continuing growth of the federal government, which will be our undoing.
So with that fact in mind, how did Lincoln "save the Union?"