It's funny how history can be written to glorify someone to mythical proportions. Politics is the art of convincing people that you are not a bad person, and the public's ways of knowing who their politicians really were back then was delayed, carefully crafted newspaper articles.
He was a common sneaky manipulative snake just like every politician that ever stood in front of a podium. It is becoming much more difficult for history to be manipulated now that there are so many accessible records being zapped around the internet every second of every day.
An untimely or unjust death does also has an effect of turning opinions to be more sympathetic.
No, Lincoln violated the Constitution more times than he followed it... he's was really a pretty poor president.
He only won the second term because half the country was banned from voting...