You take 11 paragraphs to respond and say ... virtually nothing.
If one wanted to establish another Lincoln myth, then what would be the methodology to quickly obtain acceptance and source credibility in today's historical publishing community? You would begin with a general, loosely examined place to posit your contentions...say a blog. So you write a thesis like contention and post it on the web, knowing that you and others will refer back to it in future expansions of this Lincoln lore.
I'll do you a favor and assume you have the flu, rather than some more serious and permanent condition. Are we talking about Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan or Epeli Nailatikau of Fiji? You could certainly create a great lore based on a tiny bit of fact of we were talking about such obscure figures.
But Guelzo was writing about Lincoln and the documentation and information about Lincoln is already available. The pyramid of facts and interpretation is already there. You don't have to construct an inverted one based on a blog post or two.
And what he writes is already known to those familiar with Lincoln and Civil War studies in recent years. You only have to get a copy of Gabor Boritt's Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream to understand where Guelzo is coming from and probably to see the citations for his quotations.
If you're not familiar with Boritt's work, that could be a sign that you guys only see Lincoln from one very narrow Confederocentric point of view.
“You only have to get a copy of Gabor Boritt’s Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream to understand where Guelzo is coming from and probably to see the citations for his quotations.”
You allege familiarity yet you use the word ‘probably’ for citation validation.
And that is the point exactly....quoting the quotes of others do not demonstrate that Lincoln manifested anything that Guelzo would have the public believe.
Why don't you post his sources, his secondary sources, and their sources. Then point out specific patterns of Lincoln behavior that manifest the Guelzo contentions. This will completely clear any conflict. If you are willing to spend the time composing multiple rebuttals, you can do a search and post for everyone to see.
Let us see the evidence that Mr Lincoln's actual behavior was affected by the Guelzo factor.