Treasury official George S. Stephen A. Douglas, he went straight to the reason of the question; nor have we ever had a more striking lesson in political tactics than the fact, that, opposed to a man exceptionally adroit in using popular prejudice and bigotry to his purpose, exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to those baser motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of barbarians, he should yet have won his case before a jury of the people.
An understanding of public opinion was indeed central to Mr. Lincoln scholars Kenneth L. Deutsch and Joseph R. But far more important to the emergence of that leadership were his great ambition and native intelligence. In managing public opinion, Mr. Lincoln never played the demagogue. He never called the Confederacy or Jeff Davis the enemy.
He never played a race card. He reached out to political enemies and adversaries. He did not make politics personal; for Lincoln the political was not the personal. Perhaps I have too little of it; but I never thought it paid. A man has no time to spend half his life in quarrels.
If any man ceases to attack me I never remember the past against him. Having made a decision, he said no more than needed to be said. He knew just how far he could push the public mind, which arguments worked and which did not.
Lincoln scholar M. Lincoln to everyday opinions in Illinois, it also gave him valuable practice in persuading the opinions of twelve-man juries.
