Demonización de Lincoln

Tenía la idea de que en EEUU Abraham Lincoln era venerado por doquier. Esa imagen que tenemos de él muchos extranjeros como un hombre de principios, justo, patriota, pragmático, etc. es muy criticada por nuevas corrientes revisionistas de la historia. Lo llamativo es que esta ofensiva no provenga de hacendados del sur o esclavistas obcecados (¿existen todavía?) sino de libertarios radicales, en gran medida pacifistas.
Por lo visto Lincoln, más que ese hombre alto ávido de emancipar a los resabios de la sociedad feudal, se destacó por lo autoritario y estatista.
En una carta de 1862 evidencia su condición más de político que de idealista:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.

Karen De Coster ejemplifica sobre sus políticas concretas:

Lincoln signed ten more tariff-raising bills throughout his agonizing administration. He manipulated the American public into the first income tax, he handed out huge land grants and monetary subsidies to transcontinental railroads (corporate welfare), and he took the nation off the gold standard, allowing the government to have absolute control over the monetary system. Then, he virtually nationalized the banking system under the National Currency Acts in order to establish a machine for printing new money at will and to provide cheap credit for the business elite. This mercantilist tyrant ushered in central banking, our greatest economic curse to this day.

...y su postura frente a los enemigos, los disidentes y la libertad de expresión:

Furthermore, his "New Army" and the slaughter effort on the South put into motion an unprecedented profusion of federal coercion against free citizens, both North and South. By way of conscription, he assembled a vast army by presidential decree, an act of flagrant misconduct which drafted individuals into slavery to the federal government. Additionally, any war dissenters or advocates of a peaceful settlement with the South were jailed, and, as even Mr. Smith knows, Habeus Corpus was abolished for the duration of the war. He then tossed into the slammer as many as 30,000 civilians WITHOUT due process of law for reasons of criticizing the Lincoln administration, and suppressed HUNDREDS of newspapers that did not support his war effort.

Habrá que ver cuánto de todo esto fue gracias o a pesar de la guerra. La unión la preservaron, aunque a un costo muy alto. Se puede establecer hasta un paralelismo con Urquiza cuyos objetivos eran análogos.