Glorifiied Heroes?

History classes tend to glorify historical figures such as President Abraham Lincoln. They attribute black rights to his proposal of the emancipation proclamation, which was a direct result of the Civil War. Yet, according to Eric Foner's A Short History of Reconstruction, these figures should be anything but glorified. Lincoln, being the past owner of slaves, was not necessarily mindful of black rights. His concern was mainly with regaining the Southern confederate states back into the Union. He would then propose pardons to those southern states if they would oblige to no slavery. Though in order to get Southern states back into the Union, he allowed the Southerners to create new systems of black labor that would not involve slavery. This alone shows that Lincoln's main priority was not to liberate these slaves but to unify the nation and gain power through government. Pretty sad...