[JohnCliftn]

Always strange to read of Lincoln's statesmanship without reference to Charles Francis Adams, Ambassador to Britain.

[quidnunc]

Lincoln did what he had to do to win the Civil War and maintain the Union.

He couldn't have done that without doing as he did.

Had the South been allowed to seceed the United States of America would be a second-rate and the Confederate States of America a third-rate one.