Why are there no comparisons of Putin to Lincoln? Lincoln didn't recognize the right of the Confederate States to be an independent country. Putin doesn't recognize Ukraine's right to independence. Lincoln demonized the Southerners as "rebels." Putin demonizes the Ukrainians as "Nazis." It took Lincoln 4 years to conquer the South. Maybe four years from now Putin will have won and Kiev will look like Richmond did in April 1865.
“Why are there no comparisons of Putin to Lincoln?”
As one of the few in the known world to have Lincoln in my “Top 5 worst Presidents list”, I appreciate your train of thought here. My forebears went through hell fighting, brother against brother, father against son, crushing hearts of mothers whose families were destroyed because they settled around the Cumberland Gap before state lines were firm. They had a little piece of land to survive off and a long history in the region - no slaves, no politics, but conscripted and threatened with death if they failed to fight. So many things not taught in schools anymore.
Proud of my hillbilly roots even if the family tree is uncomfortably straight…
Lincoln messed up big time in the days following Ft. Sumter when he decided to raise an army to invade the south rather than make a localized operation to punish South Carolina and retake the fort. In 20-20 hindsight, had he done that, the divisions within the southern states might have been cleverly exploited to avoid the war. But there were hotheads on both sides who didn't want that outcome.
Lincoln's first inaugural address just six weeks before Ft. Sumter outlined a clear and just path to peace. His second inaugural address, just six weeks before his assassination, outlined a clear and just reconstruction. The fact that neither could be realized by subsequent events that he could not foresee does NOT make him a despotic villain of even the same class as Vladimir Putin.