[1][2] The New York Times found the first volume to be "for its scope, admirable.
It will even stand up and appear respectable in the most distinguished company of Lincoln biographies that might be assembled."
The author is "a sane biographer, who brings to the task of writing about Lincoln a mind that aspires to see clear and think straight, instead of one held slavishly subject to a heart's desire to make Lincoln out a hero without fault or blemish.
"[3] The Atlantic Monthly noted that Morse had "attempted a bit of scientific painting and not a portraiture to the life.
[5] In 1987, Gabor Boritt noted that Morse was the first biographer to have "fully exemplified as well as diagnosed the above ailment [the schism between the self-serving, not very admirable politician that Lincoln was up until 1860 versus the later "unparalleled greatness"]."