There is a suggestion by Lord Charnwood in his 1916 biography that Lincoln's speeches, like Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, were also an expression of the American mind.
(Remember that Jefferson said of the Declaration in his 1825 letter to Henry Lee that “all American whigs thought alike on these subjects” and that “it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion”)
The worth and goodness of the average Americans in Jefferson’s time and in Lincoln’s time is what made both expressions of greatness POSSIBLE. Those loveable, clownish small-town rednecks we encounter in John Ford’s “Young Mr. Lincoln” helped Lincoln form his ideas. I don’t think Lincoln would ever agree with a Straussian that he somehow imposed his genius on America; he might agree though, that his genius was in being truly American.
Here’s Lord Charnwood:
[Lincoln] was not merely amusing himself and other people, when he chatted and exchanged anecdotes far into the night; there was an element, not ungenial, of purposeful study in it all. He was building up his knowledge of ordinary human nature, his insight into popular feeling, his rather slow but sure comprehension of the individual men he did know. It astonished the self-improving young Herndon that the serious books he read were few and that he seldom seemed to read the whole of them- though with the Bible, Shakespeare, and to a less extent Burns, he saturated his mind. The few books and the great many men were part of one study.
What greatness might good Americans of our time make possible?
Lincoln himself. Speech at Republican Banquet in Chicago, IL; December 10, 1856.
'Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much. Public opinion, or [on?] any subject, always has a ``central idea,'' from which all its minor thoughts radiate. That "central idea" in our political public opinion, at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, ``the equality of men.'''
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:413?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
C J, I think your last point is very important--knowing how to listen to Americans & to understand which way their minds turn, how they understand ordinary life & therefore also the major problems of politics, is of great importance to a serious politician. Some of pop culture is part of that...