"I am sure because of his lack of education he was not a dim witted fool"

I also have read many letters of soldiers, who could barily write, denouncing "Lincolnism", as you call it, and that is a very good term, to describe the heavy handed and unconstitutional actions of the Lincoln Adminstration.

My father-in-law (who is still alive) is one of the smartest men I know. He didn't have the oppertunity to go to school much in the 1940's, because of a family situation when he had to take care of his younger brothers and sisters. He could not read and write when he got married at the age of 18.

His wife got him to going to church and he learned to read by following the preachers reading the Bible during services. From that he began reading the Bible on his own. After that he began to teach himself mathamatics. Not the complicated stuff just basic arithmatic. But with those tools and his own natural intelligence he can figure out just about any problem that he ran into on his job.

As I said I respect his opinions far above most college professors. He may not have a "formal" education, but he has more common sence and natural intelligence than most people I have associated with.

I feel like he is an excellant modern day example of what our "Uneducated" southern ancestor were.

They may have not had a "high school" education, but they certainly were not dim witted fools. They knew the difference between right and wrong. They were capable of listening to the learned arguments of those who they respected such as their preachers and elected officials and made their own decisions.

This idea of formal educational studies being an indicator of the ability of any man to make decisions of this magnitude is vastly overrated.