There lies your problema. One which does not like clams, and where the best clams originate, New England, is already beginning from a clouded view point.
I bet you have never been in New England long enough to sample the summer's best, baked or broiled scallops
& all those Cape Cod fried clams, or Rhode Island steamers, plus Boston's rich clam chowder coupled along with scrod of the day.
How would you like a fine Manhattan glat kosher deli?
All that stuff about President Lincoln...I wonder if you would have been in favour of freeing the slaves back in the late 1850's & early 1860's?
Never been that far North and have no desire to be. I don't like clams. I have been known however to attempt to eat my weight in crablegs. Have never been a proponent of slavery to begin with. If you're claiming Lincoln was so great you haven't studied enough non-northern viewpoint history. Lincoln's own words condemn him.