In Lincoln's day a President's religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln's countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs.

David Herbert Donald

The more I have studied Lincoln, the more I have followed his thought processes, the more I am convinced that he understood leadership better than any other American president.

David Herbert Donald

But I have tried to go over it very carefully, not merely what the evidence is, but with psychoanalysts and psychologists, and I think we're just about all agreed that Lincoln and Speed did not have a homosexual relationship.

David Herbert Donald

The big biography of Lincoln necessarily had to do so much with his political career, his ambitions, his accomplishments in public, with less time to spend on his private life, his inner life, and I thought this might be a way of getting at that.

David Herbert Donald

I'm not sure Lincoln would fare well if he were a presidential candidate today.

David Herbert Donald