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

I had not got over the prejudice against Lincoln with which my personal contact with him in 1858 imbued me.

That settled Abraham Lincoln with me. I was thoroughly satisfied that no such man ought to be President; but I could not yet conceive it possible that such a monster would be the choice of a majority of the people for President.

Lincoln was a supreme politician. He understood politics because he understood human nature.

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

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.

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.

You may not like Mr. Roosevelt, but if he loss the war, we all lose it with him.

I was very political when JFK ran.

The more I have studied Lincoln, the more I have followed his thought processes, the more I am convinced that he understood leadership better than any other American president.