Seem to remember that Abe used troops to enforce a number of his exec. orders in various places
Indeed he did. Then again he was in the midst of a full on civil war and declared marshal law here and there as required. But the bottom line is that the union survived a President who was willing to push his powers to the limit and pushed them much farther and much more often than Obama. Hopefully the next president will not build on Obama's precedent and see how far (s)he can push his/her executive powers.