Hi David,

You wrote:

"As president elect he could have traveled to a major Southern city without much danger. They didn't know him and the writings I've seen suggest they didn't hate him or like him prior to the war. Many had a wait and see attitude. Any mayor or governor would have fallen all over himself for an offical visit by a president-elect."

--This is simply not true. Lincoln was elected in November, South Carolina seceded on Dec. 20, by the end of January Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana followed and Texas teetering. Who was taking a "wait and see attitude?"

Read Southern newspapers from Nov 1860 to the inaugural, they hated Lincoln.

In Springfield, he received death threats on a daily basis.

He would not have returned from a tour of the South as president-elect.