I think Lincoln is a popular topic for writers for two reasons: One, despite his holding the union together, he is a tragic figure, a melancholy man who suffered as a result of his public life, and the victim of assassination; two, his assassination gives him mythic resonance with all the sacred kings and sacrificed gods of mythology. Walt Whitman knew that when he wrote "When lilacs last by the dooryard bloomed". Abe Lincoln is our Once and Future President.

I think it may be the felicitous combination of a "great" president with the Civil War, which still obsesses a whole lot of people. By contrast, I think that devotees of the Revolutionary War are a much smaller population, and while there are a lot of WWII-philes around, there is not as much agreement on whether FDR was "great" or not.

The U.S. has been lucky. When a Washington was needed to found the nation, there he was. When a Lincoln was needed to save the nation and to free the slaves, there he was. When a Roosevelt was needed to pull the nation out of a deep economic hole and to win a world war, there he was. Duds have been president at times when the nation could survive them. Of the three giants, only Lincoln had the mystical ability to be greater than he was. He became whatever was required.

Washington, Lincoln, and FDR were all great. But the manner of Lincoln's tragic death elevate him above the other two. Like JFK, Lincoln has been mythologized. As well as the Union the he tried to preserve, his own personal tragedy elevate him to the pinnacle of our parthenon of political greats. His humor tempered by melancholy and coupled with a tempestious marriage mean he was firmly anchored in this world. His accomplishments from humble beginnings are the American Story.