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.… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share Image
Remember that Abraham Lincoln was a Whig far longer than he was a Republican. As a whole, the Whigs looked upon banks and corporations as a more efficient means of development; the Jacksonian Democrats thought they were the tools of the devil, but Whigs like Lincoln disagreed. During his presidency, Lincoln favored the re-construction of a national financial system, and… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share
Abraham Lincoln would have been happy to have solved the slavery problem by compensation - in fact, drew up a gradual, compensated emancipation plan… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share Image
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… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share Image
Patriotism without criticism has no head; criticism without patriotism has no heart. — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share Image
“Men who are industrious, and sober, and honest in the pursuit of their own interests should after a while accumulate capital, and after that should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and also if they should choose when they have accumulated it to use it to save themselves from actual labor and hire other people to labor for them… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share
“The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? … It… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share
“have got Lee just where I want him; he must fight me on my own ground.” So he waited to see what would happen—which… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share Image
“On the side of the Union,” Lincoln said, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share Image
Corporations did not achieve the scale we normally associate with them until the 1880s; but it's still hard to imagine that Abraham Lincoln would… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share Image
“It seems only human nature to hang the label irrational on what we do not understand, since it is easy for us to assume that something must be irrational if our ingenuity is unequal to the task of deciphering it. That may actually reflect more on the limits of our ingenuity than on any supposed irrationality in what we are… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share
“Lincoln was “the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely who in no single instance reminded me of the… — Allen C. Guelzo Copy Share Image
