Preserving the Union must be more important than preserving the Constituionn in the minds of many"
If we are splitting hairs here, While you did NOT claim the above statement as being one which you personally held. Since it is contained in your responce and formed the basis for the question which you asked for my responce. For the purposes of my reply, it serves the function of being your position as a Devils Advocate, rather than that of some mysterious third party. Whether it was in fact your position or not.
And it is still a wrongheaded conclusion anyway, in my opinion, for all that do hold it.
Might make right only in a Tyrant's Kingdom. Adolf Hitler was a "Great man" in the opinion of many in Germany in 1939. But he wasn't so "great" in the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, or Poland. So what makes a "Great Man"? How big of an Army he commands, or how many people he can conquer, or how many laws he can get away with breaking, or how many lies he can tell? The only "Greatness" in Lincoln was the myth that he freed the Slaves. And we know even that in his famed Emancipation Proclaimation was a falsehood.