when abraham lincoln became president of the united states in 1861, most people saw an awkward, rumpled country bumpkin. he had never traveled to europe and was seen by the american people and foreign dignitaries alike as crude and unsophisticated. the dutch minister reported of lincoln: “he and his wife seem like . . . western farmers, and even in this country, where one has no right to be fastidious, their common manners and their ways expose them in unfortunate fashion to ridicule.” while many do not remember lincoln as a great foreign-policy president, he actually was. like a true statesman, lincoln adeptly guided foreign policy at a time of great peril during the civil war when the united states was vulnerable to foreign intervention. according to kevin peraino, lincoln "should be considered one of america’s seminal foreign-policy presidents — a worthy model for students of global affairs." historians have long shown lincoln to have been a great statesman who worked tirelessly to build his country into something greater than it was. he laid the groundwork for america's later rise to become a world power.