What Made Lincoln Great

From Team of Rivals by Goodwin:
"Herein, Swett concluded, lay the secret to Lincoln's gifted leadership:
'It was by ignoring men, and ignoring all small causes, but by closely calculating the tendencies of events and the great forces which were producing logical results.'

John Forney of the Washington Daily Chronicle observed the same intuitive judgment and timing, arguing that Lincoln was 'the most truly progressive man of the age, because he always moves in conjunction with propitious circumstances, not waiting to be dragged by the force of events or wasting strength in premature struggles with them' "

Re-posted from January 16th:
"Lincoln, Obama and Bi-partisanship
TW: "Team of Rivals" is a great book but not because of any tenuous parallels to Obama and Hillary Clinton. The book is really two books. The first one tracked the lives of four contenders for the 1860 Republican nomination (Lincoln, Will Seward, Salmon Chase and Ed Bates), providing interesting insight into pre-Civil War American history.

The second provided great insight into how Abe Lincoln actually thought as he worked his way through his Presidency. Once the South seceded, Lincoln's primary foes in government were the Radical Republicans whose primary concern was the abolition of slavery. Lincoln's primary legacy is as the Great Emancipator. But had the Radical Republicans in his own party had their way, Lincoln would have had to move toward abolition prematurely putting the viability of the Union at great risk, perhaps mortal risk.

Lincoln handled emancipation brilliantly, it was his handling of that challenge and innumerable others which transformed his many skeptics into devoted followers by the end of his life. Countless times the left-wing of the Democratic party will get frustrated with Obama. There was a kerfuffle when Obama made Rick Warren part of the inauguration, some on the left are fretting about the speed by which Guantanamo will be closed. There will be other far more serious flaps. But for those interested in moving American forward in general and making America more progressive in general, lets hope Obama like Lincoln can push when needed but pullback as well."