As far as best, all have done good and bad, I'd probably vote George Washington for best. He did good for the nation, and was probably the least bad.
Abraham Lincoln I'd vote is the most oversold president in our history. Slavery ended on his watch, but that wasn't his intentions.
He staged the largest mass execution in American history, he reneged on a deal with the Sioux where the owed them only 1.4 Million for land sold, and instead promised the state of Minnesota $2 million and to kill or remove every Indian in the state, then did the same to the Navajo where his army killed, raped, pillaged, and burned their villages, then forced them out. After the War of Southern Independence, Northern Aggression(anything but Civil) where they perfected murder, rape and pillaging, his troops were ordered to the South West, and Great Plains to demonstrate what they learned in places like Atlanta, Shenandoah Valley, and Savannah.
Abe Lincoln's favorite General?
None other that the man that lead "March to the Sea": William T. Sherman, who wrote to his wife in 1862 that his goal was the "extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least of the trouble, but the people of the South." He said while campaigning against the Indians: "The only good Indian I ever saw was dead," and lamented to his son shortly before his death that he had been unable to kill all of the "Red Sob's."
Abraham Lincoln's idol? Henry Clay.
Lincoln would say of Clay; "During my whole political life, I have loved and revered Henry Clay as a teacher and leader." Lincoln delivered the eulogy at the funeral for Clay. When elected President, Lincoln set about implementing Henry Clay's political philosophies. Throughout Clay's political life he was a strong believer in National Socialism and a complete racist in all references to the American Indian. As Secretary of State Clay would declare: "The Indians' disappearance from the human family will be no great loss to the world. I do not think them, as a race, worth preserving."
Honest Abe's thoughts on blacks, and Slavery?
"Negro equality? Fudge!" -- Abraham Lincoln, Fragments: Notes for Speeches, Sept. 1859 (Vol. III)
"If I could save The Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it" -- Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Horace Greeley
"I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District [of Columbia]." -- Abraham Lincoln, 1862
"The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these [new] territories. We want them for the homes of free white people." -- Abraham Lincoln, October 16, 1854
"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in the favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary." -- Abraham Lincoln, "Lincoln's Reply to Douglas, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858," in "Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Roy P. Basler (New York: Da Capo Press, 1990), p. 445
"I will say, then, that I am not nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white 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 will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do 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." -- Abraham Lincoln, "Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate, September 18, 1858, Charleston, Illinois," in "Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings" (New York: Library of America, 1989), p. 636, and in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 5, page 371
"Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this.... We cannot, then, make them equals." -- Abraham Lincoln, "Lincoln's Reply to Douglas," p. 444
"What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." -- Abraham Lincoln, Spoken at Springfield, Illinois on July 17th, 1858; from Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, 1894, Volume 1, page 273
He suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus and arrested tens of thousands of Northern Anti-War protesters. He also closed down a few hundred Northern newspapers, and invaded the Northern states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, then took over their legislatures, all because those three sovereign states didn't want to participate in his war which they considered unconstitutional.
Honest Abe killed more Americans than WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan War, Iraq War, and the War on Terror(that's not even including Native Americans during his time in power).
My 2% of $1.00
