It is so refreshing to see a reasonable discussion of Lincoln. The Lincoln myth is so damaging. Most thinking people can look at the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, and then consider what we have today, and readily admit that we aren't even close to what was intended. When confronted with the question of "well, what happened?" the usual response is "well, incrementalism, little by little, the Founder's protective measures against central government tyranny was eroded." Which sounds reasonable at first. But then if that person has actually studied how the Founders knew that central government power had to be physically taken away and physically kept in the hands of the sovereign States by actually constructing a form of government that did not allow the people to simply vote away their independence, that person then is faced with the inconvenient truth that the form of government established by the Founders could only be uprooted by actual force of arms, violent revolution. And, alas, that is what happened. The original form of government established by the Constitution was a puny powerless central government, with the Constitution itself an instrument of the States' power over it. Like an inverted pyramid. The 14th Amendment, as lovely as it sounded at the time, converted the Constitution into an instrument for the All Powerful Central Government to lord over the States, and reversed the pyramid of power. (No comment on the history of the inscription on the obverse of the Great Seal...don't want to end up in the root cellar, mere coincidences, nothing to see here.)

Cheers,