Lincoln Wins. Now What?

(NYTimes) ... Now that task falls to a president who received fewer than four votes in 10; a president who is purely the creature of only one section of the country; a president who, apart from one undistinguished term in the House of Representatives a decade ago (and a period in the state legislature), has no experience in public office; a president who comes from a Republican party that has been stitched together from various interests, who will be asked to work with a Congress whose two houses are controlled by Democrats. Continued

Photo: Abraham Lincoln, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly left, taken in Pittsfield, Illinois, two weeks before the final Lincoln-Douglas debate in Lincoln's unsuccessful bid for the Senate, October 1, 1858 (Library of Congress).