I Should also add that the "big tyrannical government" that so many speak of didn't really even come about until the Progressive Era, and even then it was by no means tyrannical. Teddy Roosevelt expanded his power to strike down massive trusts that monopolized and dominated free market and suppressed workers rights. Big government does not mean tyranny, it can be used as protection to citizens and to the foundations of capitalism. If state's rights became the sole foundation of our government, then acts like the Civil Rights would have to be declared unconstitutional because it would infrige upon the right of a state to enact its own laws, regardless if they discriminate against people. A state cannot declare its right to self government when its own government contradicts the ideals of democracy and liberty that the country was founded upon.

Lincoln was a clearly a proponent of the ideals of Democracy, it was the ideal of Democracy that fueled his greatness. Southerners often sight the right to secede and that Lincoln was a horrible tyrant for not allowing it. But what is a democracy if it cannot maintain its integrity? And what is democracy when that secession is founded on the right to enslave another. Slavery was the main issue of the war, it was the foundation of South Carolina's secession absolution. There were many people throughout the south who were opposed to the idea of secession and attempted to voice that opposition. However, the Confederate government enacted martial law against these areas of resistance and took away those same rights southerners claim to have had taken away from them. Lincoln suspended habeus corpus to protect the government from spies and those who wished to compromise the government. He never supressed the First Amendment right to free speech. He took heavy criticism along with praise during his Presidency and never did he jail any one for doing so. The fact is Lincoln abhorred slavery, and altough he was no radical abolitionist, southerners feared he was and declared so in particular in SC's secession absolution. He never found it within his power to free the slave and believed his overriding duty was to preserve the union...The war changed that power however and he was allowed the power to free the slave as a war aim through the Emancipation Proclamation and had it followed up with the passage of the 13th amendment afterwords. Lincoln was indeed one of our Greatest Presidents, he was the best friend the South had after the war, and had he lived, the south would not have suffered during Reconstruction and I guarantee they would all have a different opinion of him today.