What we have today in Washington is a textbook political Science Labrotory study in how a Democracy can be subverted, and why our Forefathers chose to establish this country as a Republic instead. We are very closely duplicating the political conditions of the 1850's in Washington.
On Lincoln, I doubt that we will ever know the "REAL" Lincoln in my opinion he was such a political operative that pinning him down as to his actual position on anything is like trying to nail Jello to a wall. This is why I question this poll that rates Lincoln as the "Best American President". Clearly these Historians that were survey were very shallow in their studies. Then you have the Mythology of Lincoln which appears to have been manufactured in the most part to justify the new form of United States Government which emerged out of the War of Northern Aggression.