Relying on the expertise of various Lincoln scholars (Paul M. Angle, Dr. William Barton, Reinhard Luthin and David Mearns), efforts have been made to verify as to whether or not all the many aphorisms, bon mots, maxims, epigrams and Tweets attributed to Lincoln were indeed authored by the slain president, or were they the product of the hundreds of forgers and prevaricators that have followed in his wake.
This five page article examined the prodigious efforts of the cottage industry that specialized in all sorts of Lincoln hooey and reported that "Honest Abe" had never written or uttered anything about "fooling the people some of the time" or any matter of that nature:
• nor had he ever embraced any element of anti-Catholicism.
• He never knew a lass named Ann Rutledge,
• he probably never wrote that eloquent letter to Lydia Bixby,
• and he was not the author of what has come to be known as the "Ten Points".
Historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Lincoln at number 11 insofar as his impact on the cultural mindset of the United States...
To read an article about Lincoln's sense of humor, click here.
