If you want to talk about "precedents" think of the precedents that would have been set if any state that disagreed with a particular law of the country could just leave. There would be no United States today. We'd have a hodgepodge of countries - each with their own laws, limited commerce, different currencies. We would not be the superpower we are economically or politically.

And yes, 600,000 people died in the civil war. But it freed 4 MILLION slaves and started the clock on giving them equal rights. Slavery may have been on the way out but it would have been decades, possibly 100 years for some states before it was outlawed. During that time millions more would have endured slavery.

So help me understand specifically what "bad precedents" Lincoln created that offset the total dissolution of the United States and the enslavement of millions of people.