Secretary of War Stanton used to get out of patience with Lincoln because he was all the time pardoning men who ought to be shot.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Politically I did not like Mr. Lincoln, for in him I saw the destroyer.
Lincoln did more than any other man to put the stamp of righteousness, to put the stamp of compassion, on the name of America.
I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.
At the beginning, Lincoln was so inexperienced he had reverence for military expertise, not realizing that there wasn't any military expertise, that the most anybody had commanded up to that point had been somebody, some troops in the Mexican War, and it had been years ago.
As long as it served his purpose, Mr. Lincoln boldly advocated the right of Secession.
I had not got over the prejudice against Lincoln with which my personal contact with him in 1858 imbued me.
Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.
People don't realize what a brilliant politician Lincoln was. Looking back, we want to ascribe a level of providence to his every decision but he was a cunning and calculating politician; from the cultivation of his image as a hayseed from Illinois, to his ability to keep this country together under dire circumstances.
In every era going back to Lincoln with Frederick Douglass, presidents talk to those that were leading at that time.
Lincoln emancipated nobody. The man freed not a single slave.