“Lincoln habitually would tell people he was totally ignorant of a subject which in fact he was quite well versed in, because then they would underestimate him, and when they underestimated him they would fall into his trap. Leonard Swett once said that anybody who mistook Lincoln for a simple man would soon end up with his back in a ditch.”

2010s, Interview with Tom Mackaman (2013)

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Allen C. Guelzo 82
American historian 1953

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