Edmund Morris - The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt-Random House

When ardent Republicans heard Lincoln speak, they knew that if their beloved Seward could not win, they had in the eloquent orator from Illinois a man of considerable capacity whom they could trust, one who would hold fast on the central issue that had forged the party—the fight against extending slavery into the territories. Though Lincoln had ent

Chicago Press and Tribune pointed out, was “his avoidance of extremes” simply “the result of ambition which measures words or regulates acts.” It was, more accurately, “the natural consequence of an equable nature and a mental constitution that is never off its balance.”

President Roosevelt remarked that King was so tough that he shaved with a blowtorch and trimmed his toenails with torpedo net cutters.10 His intelligence, energy, and organizational abilities won the respect of all those who worked with him; unlike his Army counterpart, George C. Marshall, however, he never gained their reverence or affection.