What we see in Lincoln is a collection of the virtues we think are most important in a democratic leadership. - Allen C. Guelzo

There has never been a freedom, of course, that someone has not proved ingenious enough to abuse.

The answer, then, to the question of who freed the slaves is not the slaves, and not even (as Blight tries to temporize) both the slaves and Lincoln. It was Lincoln's task—and Lincoln did it. This may not work to promote anyone else's self-esteem, but it did wonders for providing freedom.

[T]he real issue of the Civil War was a terrible ideological derangement that had lifted an entire portion of the American Republic away from the ideological moorings of the founders...