I suppose I've been interested in Abraham Lincoln for almost as long as I can remember. My first Lincoln book was the Classics Illustrated comic book version of the life of Lincoln, and with that, I was hooked.

It is possible to have pardon without forgiveness-a murderer can be pardoned by the governor, but that does not mean the victim's family has forgiven him. And there can be forgiveness without pardon.

Modern presidential debating only started with Richard Nixon and John F.Kennedy in 1960, although the proximity of that to the Lincoln-Douglas centennial is more than accidental. The reason is, I think, the medium. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were talking, but the talking was in terms of logic, development, and reasoning. Television, as a medium, resists those qualities in speaking - it favors quick cuts, one-liners, and talking points. I think the modern debates are largely the prisoners of the televised medium

I suspect, too, that the modern debates represent the effort of candidates with widely-varying constituencies and special interests to please to tip the hat as quickly as possible to as many of the constituencies and interests as possible. That leaves no time for big-picture issues. Contrast this with Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, where the subject was only ever slavery, and the discussion went right to the bedrock of what a democracy is all about.

I suppose I've been interested in Abraham Lincoln for almost as long as I can remember. My first Lincoln book was the Classics Illustrated comic book version of the life of Lincoln, and with that, I was hooked.

Until the early 90s, when I was working on a project about the idea of free will in American philosophy. I knew that Lincoln had had something to say about "necessity" and "fatalism," and so I began writing him into the book. In fact, Lincoln took over. I wrote instead 'Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President,' in 1999, and I've splitting rails with Mr. Lincoln ever since. If there's a twelve-step process for this somewhere, I haven't found it yet.

Abraham Lincoln did have intellectual instincts, a tremendous curiosity on a broad range of subjects, and a near-photographic memory for what he read. He was, at the end of the day, a politician: politics were his heaven, said William Herndon. But Lincoln did take comfort in ideas and books, more so than almost any other president, and he went to books and ideas in moments of perplexity to sort things out. Philosopher, no, but thoughtful and "surprisingly well-read" for his day.