Scholars rank President Lincoln among the top three (3) U.S. Presidents, with the average of those surveys placing him at #1. He is noted for his lasting influence on U.S. politics.

Abraham Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue, in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: “we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The spirit that guided Lincoln was clear, as inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds”