Author : Russell Shorto
Publisher :
Page : 140 pages
File Size : 41,29 MB
Release : 1991
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780382240461
A biography of the President who led the country through the stormy years of the Civil War.
Author : Daniel W. Crofts
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 18,82 MB
Release : 2016-02-13
Category : History
ISBN : 1469627329
In this landmark book, Daniel Crofts examines a little-known episode in the most celebrated aspect of Abraham Lincoln's life: his role as the "Great Emancipator." Lincoln always hated slavery, but he also believed it to be legal where it already existed, and he never imagined fighting a war to end it. In 1861, as part of a last-ditch effort to preserve the Union and prevent war, the new president even offered to accept a constitutional amendment that barred Congress from interfering with slavery in the slave states. Lincoln made this key overture in his first inaugural address. Crofts unearths the hidden history and political maneuvering behind the stillborn attempt to enact this amendment, the polar opposite of the actual Thirteenth Amendment of 1865 that ended slavery. This compelling book sheds light on an overlooked element of Lincoln's statecraft and presents a relentlessly honest portrayal of America's most admired president. Crofts rejects the view advanced by some Lincoln scholars that the wartime momentum toward emancipation originated well before the first shots were fired. Lincoln did indeed become the "Great Emancipator," but he had no such intention when he first took office. Only amid the crucible of combat did the war to save the Union become a war for freedom.
Author : Gary W. Gallagher
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 17,76 MB
Release : 2011-04-25
Category : History
ISBN : 0674045629
In a searing analysis of the Civil War North as revealed in contemporary letters, diaries, and documents, Gallagher demonstrates that what motivated the North to go to war and persist in an increasingly bloody effort was primarily preservation of the Union.
Author : William C. Harris
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 433 pages
File Size : 41,11 MB
Release : 2014-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 070062015X
Adopting a new approach to an American icon, an award-winning scholar reexamines the life of Abraham Lincoln to demonstrate how his remarkable political acumen and leadership skills evolved during the intense partisan conflict in pre-Civil War Illinois. By describing Lincoln's rise from obscurity to the presidency, William Harris shows that Lincoln's road to political success was far from easy-and that his reaction to events wasn't always wise or his racial attitudes free of prejudice. Although most scholars have labeled Lincoln a moderate, Harris reveals that he was by his own admission a conservative who revered the Founders and advocated "adherence to the old and tried." By emphasizing the conservative bent that guided Lincoln's political evolution-his background as a Henry Clay Whig, his rural ties, his cautious nature, and the racial and political realities of central Illinois-Harris provides fresh insight into Lincoln's political ideas and activities and portrays him as morally opposed to slavery but fundamentally conservative in his political strategy against it. Interweaving aspects of Lincoln's life and character that were an integral part of his rise to prominence, Harris provides in-depth coverage of Lincoln's controversial term in Congress, his re-emergence as the leader of the antislavery coalition in Illinois, and his Senate campaign against Stephen A.Douglas. He particularly describes how Lincoln organized the antislavery coalition into the Republican Party while retaining the support of its diverse elements, and sheds new light on Lincoln's ongoing efforts to bring Know Nothing nativists into the coalition without alienating ethnic groups. He also provides new information and analysis regarding Lincoln's nomination and election to the presidency, the selection of his cabinet, and his important role as president-elect during the secession crisis of 1860-1861. Challenging prevailing views, Harris portrays Lincoln as increasingly driven not so much by his own ambitions as by his antislavery sentiments and his fear for the republic in the hands of Douglas Democrats, and he shows how the unique political skills Lincoln developed in Illinois shaped his wartime leadership abilities. By doing so, he opens a window on his political ideas and influences and offers a fresh understanding of this complex figure.
Author : Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 45,56 MB
Release : 2009-01-22
Category : History
ISBN : 140083208X
From acclaimed scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the most comprehensive collection of Lincoln's writings on race and slavery Generations of Americans have debated the meaning of Abraham Lincoln's views on race and slavery. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation and supported a constitutional amendment to outlaw slavery, yet he also harbored grave doubts about the intellectual capacity of African Americans, publicly used the n-word until at least 1862, and favored permanent racial segregation. In this book—the first complete collection of Lincoln's important writings on both race and slavery—readers can explore these contradictions through Lincoln's own words. Acclaimed Harvard scholar and documentary filmmaker Henry Louis Gates, Jr., presents the full range of Lincoln's views, gathered from his private letters, speeches, official documents, and even race jokes, arranged chronologically from the late 1830s to the 1860s. Complete with definitive texts, rich historical notes, and an original introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., this book charts the progress of a war within Lincoln himself. We witness his struggles with conflicting aims and ideas—a hatred of slavery and a belief in the political equality of all men, but also anti-black prejudices and a determination to preserve the Union even at the cost of preserving slavery. We also watch the evolution of his racial views, especially in reaction to the heroic fighting of black Union troops. At turns inspiring and disturbing, Lincoln on Race and Slavery is indispensable for understanding what Lincoln's views meant for his generation—and what they mean for our own.
Author : Noah Feldman
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Page : 236 pages
File Size : 34,9 MB
Release : 2021-11-02
Category : History
ISBN : 0374720878
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice An innovative account of Abraham Lincoln, constitutional thinker and doer Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution—a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind.” But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States’ founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution’s place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact—a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text—a transcendent statement of the nation’s highest ideals. The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them—and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln’s Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues. Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations
Author : Eric Foner
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 464 pages
File Size : 23,9 MB
Release : 2011-09-26
Category : History
ISBN : 039308082X
“A masterwork [by] the preeminent historian of the Civil War era.”—Boston Globe Selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, this landmark work gives us a definitive account of Lincoln's lifelong engagement with the nation's critical issue: American slavery. A master historian, Eric Foner draws Lincoln and the broader history of the period into perfect balance. We see Lincoln, a pragmatic politician grounded in principle, deftly navigating the dynamic politics of antislavery, secession, and civil war. Lincoln's greatness emerges from his capacity for moral and political growth.
Author : Thomas A. Durwood
Publisher :
Page : 1600 pages
File Size : 11,11 MB
Release : 1990-12-01
Category :
ISBN : 9780382240447
Author : Allen C. Guelzo
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 44,43 MB
Release : 2006-11-07
Category : History
ISBN : 1416547959
One of the nation's foremost Lincoln scholars offers an authoritative consideration of the document that represents the most far-reaching accomplishment of our greatest president. No single official paper in American history changed the lives of as many Americans as Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. But no American document has been held up to greater suspicion. Its bland and lawyerlike language is unfavorably compared to the soaring eloquence of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural; its effectiveness in freeing the slaves has been dismissed as a legal illusion. And for some African-Americans the Proclamation raises doubts about Lincoln himself. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation dispels the myths and mistakes surrounding the Emancipation Proclamation and skillfully reconstructs how America's greatest president wrote the greatest American proclamation of freedom.
Author : Richard Nelson Current
Publisher : UPNE
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 26,9 MB
Release : 1992
Category : History
ISBN : 9781555531249
With this path-breaking book, Richard Nelson Current closes a major gap in our understanding of the important role of white southerners who fought for the Union during the Civil War. The ranks of the Union forces swelled by more than 100,000 of these men known to their friends as "loyalists" and to their enemies as "tories". They substantially strengthened the Union, weakened the Confederacy, and affected the outcome of the Civil War. Despite the assertions of southern governors that Lincoln would get no troops from the South to preserve the Union, every Confederate state except South Carolina provided at least a battalion of white troops for the Union Army. The role of black soldiers (including those from the South) continues to receive deserved attention. Curiously, little heed has been paid to the white southern supporters of the Union cause, and nothing has been published about the group as a whole. Relying almost entirely on primary sources, Current here opens the long-overdue investigation of these many Americans who, at great risk to themselves and their families, made a significant contribution to the Union's war effort. Current meticulously explores the history of the loyalists in each Confederate state during the war. Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia provided over 70 percent of the loyalist troops, but 10,000 from Arkansas, 7,000 from Louisiana, and thousands from North Carolina, Texas, and Alabama volunteered as well. The author weaves the separate state stories into an intriguing and detailed tapestry. The loyalists served in a variety of capacities--some performing mundane tasks, some fighting with valor. Whatever his individual role, each southerner joining the Unionconstituted a double loss to the Confederacy: a subtraction from its own ranks and an addition to the Union's. Undoubtedly, this played an important role in the Confederate defeat.
