Conflicted nothing...He was a racist, warmonger and an extreme egomaniac, plain and simple.
My own opinion is that Lincoln was a great president. Two years back I started a thread titled "Lincoln Good President, or Bad President" at another forum.
One of the responses, which was drawn from a review of a book by Lerone Bennett, Jr, a book highly critical of Lincoln - answers and explains most of these criticisms of Lincoln. Here's a
LINK to the REVIEW of Forced Into Glory
Here's a short excerpt on one of the slams of Lincoln mentioned above:
"Bennett correctly points out that Lincoln was a supporter of colonization. But supporting colonization is not the same as preferring it. Lincoln believed it was one small answer to the larger problem confronting Blacks in a racist society. What the readers of Forced Into Glory should know is that Lincoln advocated voluntary colonization. No Black was forced to leave the country against his or her free will. Only those who wanted to leave were offered the opportunity. The great majority declined, a few did not.
In one instance, Lincoln had approved a contract with an unscrupulous contractor to set up a colony on the Ile de Vache off the coast of Haiti. When Lincoln learned that several hundred Blacks had been abandoned without proper support, he ordered the United States Navy to bring the Blacks back to the United States. If Lincoln's plan was to rid the country of Blacks by deportation, he showed poor judgement in returning those Blacks who had already been deported.
Whatever Lincoln believed in his heart regarding social equality, he believed slavery was morally wrong, and he said so on numerous occasions: "If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong." His views were well known to southern leaders, which is why they rejected his presidency. When Confederate peace commissioners met at Hampton Roads in 1865, Lincoln was willing to entertain terms of peace and reunion, but only on the condition that slavery was not a negotiating point. Lincoln insisted that any peace proposal include ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery."
And Here's a link to the full thread
"Lincoln Good President, or Bad President" if you want to see some of the responses I got
Washington was the greatest of presidents, for all the reasons mentioned, but remaining president beyond any election was not an option for him; he simply didn't let it become an issue, because it would've destroyed the "union".
