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Lincoln merely nominally freed the bodies of Negroes. But Debs would free the bodies and minds of Negroes.

We forget that the most successful statesmen have been professionals. Lincoln was a professional politician.

Lincoln was the spokesman of the rising capitalist class of the North, who viewed the emancipation of Negro slaves as indispensable to the development and triumph of the manufacturers and bankers of the industrial North, East and West over the slave-holder of the South.

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.

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

My thinking is Lincolnian rather than Jeffersonian, Teddy Rooseveltian rather than Franklin D. Rooseveltian.

Well, it seems to me Lincoln, I suppose, is kind of a model of a particular sort of presidency, a presidency that first of all is elected by a minority of the votes.

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

I'm not sure Lincoln would fare well if he were a presidential candidate today.

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.