Abraham Lincoln had a deep realism; he did not deceive or mislead himself, but faced the world he had to deal with as it really is. At the same time, he had a striking moral intelligence, and a confidence in the working of his own mind and conscience.

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.

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?"

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.

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.

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.

There was specific constitutional provision for emergency measures in the case that Abraham Lincoln faced - an insurrection - which no other president has faced.