Lincoln’s evolution as a politician and a man is one of the more amazing things about him. I was listening to an interview recently with an author who wrote a book on McClelland. He said that one of the things that likely led to the animosity between the two was that they were both Whigs in the 1840s and probably shared the same political views as young men. However, McClelland moved towards the Democrats while Lincoln obviously became a Republican.
The author argued that McClelland always carried those cautious, middle of the road Whig beliefs. Lincoln, on the other hand, kept a cautious approach but that approach served far more radical political ends. The gist - and I’ve seen this elsewhere - is that Lincoln realized exactly what the Civil War was going to be far earlier than nearly anyone else in the country. Meanwhile, McClelland seemed to always believe that he could quell the rebellion without a total bloodletting and somehow return politics to the status quo.
Essentially, McClelland wanted to take a cautious approach to return to the 1850s, while Lincoln knew that that the slavery question was going to be resolved once and for all in some manner.
I have no earthly idea why I added a D to his name. A thousand apologies....
“Lincoln’s evolution as a politician and a man is one of the more amazing things about him.”
He had just started to turn his life around.