![]() ![]() We tend to look at Lincoln now from the perspective of this fully realized figure who was martyred four years later, but Lincoln in 1861 was very much groping his way and in many instances blundering his way through this crisis. Most people thought it was going to be William Seward. ![]() Everyone was speculating on what he would do, and nobody thought that Lincoln would be the preeminent power in the White House. He was a one-term Congressman from Illinois, and hadn’t even set foot in Washington in a dozen years when he came to the White House. Goodheart: Lincoln was the least known figure ever to assume the presidency until then, and I think we forget just how inexperienced he was. ![]() Slate: What’s the 1861 sense of who Abraham Lincoln is? How much do Americans know about him at the start of the war? ![]()
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