Almost all Lincoln biographies are completely worthless, Mencius Moldbug says:
They explain Lincoln as a saint, rather than the extraordinarily talented politician he was. Their method is as follows: tell us what Lincoln said, assume that he was saying what he was thinking, then praise this noble thought. When Lincoln emits “darky” jokes or other crass noises, this can be put down to necessary political opportunism, in which he had to engage if he was to fulfill his Father’s mission. (Note that the same method, with the same results, can be used for Barack Obama.)Masters [Lincoln the Man (1931)] and Beveridge [Abraham Lincoln (1928)] put Lincoln in his political context, and they explain his speeches as what they were: not thoughts but actions, with intended results. Masters was America’s leading poet and Beveridge a major senator, and neither of them have any patience with the “great man” act. Their books are hard to find, unfortunately, but there’s always interlibrary loan.