The situation Abraham Lincoln faced was unique. In his view, the United States was threatened with destruction, ruin, overthrow, perishing - all words that he used - which is not the case for any other president, including the current one - Barack Obama.

I am asked often about Abraham Lincoln's mistakes and faults; he certainly made some mistakes. I have chapter in President Lincoln about the Powhatan affair that was a royal screw-up in the early days - right alongside the Sumter affair. Lincoln signed letters he should not signed, and the ship was sent to two places at one under two captains etc. Fortunately, no great harm. Lincoln took the blame and did not do anything like that again.

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.

When I went to an Aspen seminar on "American Scriptures" - the bicentennial of the Declaration and they discussed the preamble and the Gettysburg Address and much more, but not Lincoln's Second Inauguration, I challenged that omission and they said find something on it and to my astonishment, at that time, there was no book or long article that really did it. So I wrote one that attempted to do it justice. Although obscurely published, that essay got a nice bounce. Somehow David Donald saw it, and in his notes to his biography singled it out.

Abraham Lincoln had great clarity of mind and expression, and he worked to make it clearer -reading Euclid in his early 30s to train his mind.

Yes, the rise in corporate power had roots in the gearing up for the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was a Whig, a supporter of government aid to expanding industry - to "internal improvements" that supported the growth of business. He was an early capitalist, not one who wanted to preserve some rural paradise.

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.