Of all the paradoxes of Lincoln's life, none is more powerful than the fact that the man who would come to be known throughout the world-from American schoolrooms to the tribal councils of the Caucasus Mountains-was deeply mysterious to the people who knew him best. "Those who have spoken most confidently of their knowledge of his personal qualities," wrote the Pennsylvania Republican Alexander McClure, "are, as a rule, those who saw least of them below the surface.
( Joshua Wolf Shenk )
[ Lincoln's Melancholy: How ]
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