James M. McPherson

"Interpretations of the past are subject to change in response to new evidence, new questions asked of the evidence, new perspectives gained by the passage of time."

"What has changed is that I've gained a lot more sympathy for Lincoln. At the time I was doing my dissertation I tended to take the Wendell Phillips view of Lincoln. Why didn't he move more quickly? Wh…"

"If Lincoln had been a failure, he would have lived a longer life."

"While one or more of these interpretations remain popular among the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other Southern heritage groups, few professional historians now subscribe to them. Of all these int…"

"Lincoln. His commitment to preserving the United States was so strong and so deep that he was willing to do whatever it took to succeed. Would you like to be in his shoes? Just think about that for a …"

"What were these rights and liberties for which Confederates contended? The right to own slaves; the liberty to take this property into the territories."

"The Alabama Democratic convention its delegates to walk out of the national convention if the party refused to adopt a platform pledging a federal slave code for the territories. Other lower-South Dem…"

"More than any other American, Lincoln's name has gone into history. He gave all Americans, indeed all people everywhere, reason to remember that he had lived."