One thing to consider wrt Washington is that at the close of the Revolutionary War, there were those who wanted him to be king. In the words of my Constitutional Professor, Washington basically said "No thanks, I'll just go over here and farm a little."

Imagine, had he had the mentality of GWB, there may never have been any presidents.

I think this wasn't an act of his while in the presidency, but at least this should mean that he should figure high on the list of greatest men who were presidents.

To continue with the observations TheDumbBlonde and SmashAdams made about the "Emancipation Proclamation"... Not only was it only directed to the Southern states, and Lincoln had no authority over those states, but it only threatened to free the slaves if the South did not rejoin the Union.

Also, calling the "Civil War" is a misnomer. A civil war is when two factions in the same country struggle to seize control of a single government.

The "War of Southern Seccession" was one group of states wanting to exercise their right to dissolve their bond with the Union and to form an entirely new country much as the colonies had done during the Revolution (except the United States was originally designed so states legally had the right to secede).

Some bits from A Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Ph.D. are...

As H.L. Mencken observed about the Gettysburg Address:

The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history... the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold hard words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination -- that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not vanish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers actually fought against self-determination. It was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves

If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right -- a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit.

I will say that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they can not so live, while they remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.