Standing on Abraham Lincoln's shoulders

We are but 24 hours from America’s first black president and what feels here much more the world’s first black president – although, of course, he isn’t.

Vast numbers of foreigners have come in, including, as I’ve mentioned, no small band of Britons. A voice called out to me yesterday on the street amidst thousands pouring into the Bruce Springsteen concert. “Mr Snow! Mr Snow! I’m a policeman from Manchester!”

I turned round and here was this very tall Afro-Caribbean man, and we immediately got talking. He is a constable from Greater Manchester Police, has been in the force 19 years, and he has come here because he longs to be part of this great change. He was clearly emotionally moved to be among the streams of humanity moving along the streets of Washington. He’d found an American policeman’s family to stay with, and I’ll be talking to him tomorrow on Channel 4 News.

But that’s only one insight. There are so many more. The preparations, the security, even the lavatories, are here on a vast scale. Good old America! They’ve never liked discussing lavatories – they have always been “bathrooms”. But here, the portable ones have amazing names like Porta Potty and Don’s Johns.

The excitement you can very nearly touch. And the numbers on the streets now, in these continuing sub-zero temperatures and repeated flurries of snow, are mounting. Standing in a courtyard below my office, I can see Newt Gingrich, former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, talking on a mobile phone from behind a pillar.

I’ve been talking to Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, a completely brilliant book that gives great insight into Lincoln himself and into America’s historic struggle with slavery, civil war and the establishment of the United States. It’s the book Obama said that, next to the Bible, he would want to guide him in his administration.

Ms Kearns Goodwin has spoken with Obama on several occasions in the last six months, not least as Obama was building his own “cabinet of rivals”.