The US did not have any big supply of good generals in Civil War, and some it did have went with the rebels. If Robert E.Lee had stayed with his country the story would have been different.

Abraham Lincoln was not philosopher, exactly. But he did have a strong mind, which sought generalizations as well as particulars. He had a terrific memory.

After I published a book called Lincoln's Virtues a wit said that my next book should be Lincoln's Vices. But in my opinion that would be a short book!

I do not think you can fault Abraham Lincoln for picking generals that did not work out, because, as he said to John Hay when he went back to George B. McClellan in the fall of 62, we have to work with what we have.

It is very hard to answer the oft-posed questions about how Abraham Lincoln would respond to some current condition. My favorite story on that count is that the late great Lincoln scholar Don Fehrebacher was asked, during the struggles over bussing for racial balance a few years ago, what Lincoln would say about "bussing" and he thought awhile and then answered : "what Lincoln would say would be: "What's a bus?"

Abraham Lincoln did not contend that his actions were immune from Congressional correction; on the contrary, he specifically said he was acting beyond the present provisions in the expectation that congress would retroactively approve, which they did. He did not say anything like Richard Nixon: if the president does it is legal.

All presidents - particularly war presidents, presidents inclined to the imperial presidency - invoke Abraham Lincoln as a justification, but they omit these three defenses of Lincoln's strong actions. Suspend habeas, blockade, increase army without congress, arrest Maryland legislators, etc.