Did you ever notice how it is always the "genius" presidents that make an utter mess of everything?
Lincoln in 1861.
Wilson in 1914.
Kennedy in 1960.
Carter in 1976.
Clinton in 1992.
Obama in 2008.
All of these men were hailed as "Geniuses", and yet they presided over some of the very worst mistakes in American history.
Funny thing was, Lincoln offered to let those original states go if Virginia would simply pledge to remain. Additionally, delegates from Virginia did indeed go to Lincoln (after the War Fleet had already launched) and told him that they believed they had the votes to issue such a statement, to which Lincoln replied "Too Late! You sir, are too late!", or words to that effect.
Lincoln knew he had started a war. A very bad war.
And thus DiogenesLamp again reveals the true purpose of Lost Cause mythology -- to convince Americans that Lincoln & Company were liberal Democrats while Confederates were the true Conservative Republicans.
The real truth is that Confederates were Southern Democrats -- as "resistance", rebellious and America-hating as any Democrats today.
Lincoln was a conservative defender of the Constitution as originally intended.
All of these men were hailed as "Geniuses", and yet they presided over some of the very worst mistakes in American history.
Fool. Nobody proclaimed Lincoln a "genius" in 1860. His opponents thought of him as an uncouth backwoodsman or a small-time lawyer. Those who voted for him had to believe he was competent, but nobody claimed he was a "genius" intellectually far ahead of Douglas or Breckenridge or Buchanan. They just hoped he'd be up to the job. If people do find Lincoln particularly intelligent and eloquent now, it's perhaps because his contemporaries didn't have high expectations of him and therefore weren't disappointed. Rather, they were surprised by his capabilities.
As for the others, people want to believe the presidents they vote for know what they are doing and aren't incompetents. Democrats often look to their presidents as saviors, and as the party has grown more oriented towards college campuses and people with advanced degrees, some Democrats tend to see their presidents as geniuses. But just how many people feel that and how strongly and for how long and just how serious or significant such feelings are is harder to say.
People who thought Jimmy Carter knew what he was doing didn't think that way for long. And however smart some true believers thought Bill Clinton was, the more common impression was of slickness and cleverness, not raw intellect. In any case, such hype about candidate's intellectual powers has nothing to do with Lincoln, who certainly wasn't "hailed as a genius" by his contemporaries.