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It is therefore not to be wondered at that Lincoln's single term in the House of Representatives at Washington added practically nothing to his reputation.

No president has come near to rivaling Lincoln as a writer.

I think also there's no question that Lincoln has been diluted down through history in some way, almost by becoming as iconic as he is, in a way he's become diluted.

Lincoln was the greatest speaker and he was ridiculed for how he looked, you know?

Lincoln had no such person that he could talk with. Often, as a result, he debated with himself, and he would draw up a kind of list of the pros and cons of an argument, and carefully figure them out, and he might test them in public.

I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.

Abraham Lincoln never denigrated, never scapegoated, never finger-pointed. And he had reason to.

If Lincoln is among history's truly great men, he didn't achieve that stature until his final three years. This was when his long-held antipathy to slavery cohered into a dedicated hostility that gave larger purpose to the Civil War and also confirmed the logic of Lincoln's destiny.

But having said all of that, that still doesn't account for a lot of the increase in popularity which stems, I think, from Lincoln's personal characteristics.

If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.