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Abraham Lincoln is the United States' best lawyer president, and he is, along with George Washington, one of the two greatest presidents in American history. In his Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, Lincoln brilliantly pointed out all the many ways in which the U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott v. Sandford was wrongly decided, and he argued in almost every speech that that decision was repugnant and ought to be overruled. In doing this, Abraham Lincoln set a lawyerly standard for how to fight back against an unconstitutional ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
In his First Inaugural Address, President Lincoln made a constitutional case as to why the unilateral secession of the Southern states was unconstitutional. He pledged to win what he called the War of the Rebellion, and he lived just long enough to see that victory achieved. The U.S. Supreme...