Kly, sometimes we fail to recognize preservation of the Union as Lincoln's primary objective. From his 1862 letter to Horace Greeley: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery." Even his Emancipation Proclamation of that same year exempting border slave states from its provisions is further evidence of Lincoln's purpose.

It's this history that tends to get buried in our rush to elevate certain historical figures to a certain pinnacle.