Volume 51, Number 13 · August 12, 2004
The Greatest Republican
By James M. McPherson
Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Him President
by John A. Corry
Xlibris, 282 pp., $31.99; 21.99 (paper)
Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President
by Harold Holzer
Simon and Schuster, 338 pp., $25.00
Why Lincoln Matters Today More Than Ever
by Mario M. Cuomo
Harcourt, 183 pp., $24.00
Lincoln's Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion After the Civil War
by Elizabeth D. Leonard
Norton, 367 pp., $25.95
Three months before the Republican national convention scheduled for May 1860, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois did not make anyone's list of potential presidential nominees. At best he could hope to receive his state's first-ballot support as a favorite son. Newspaper editors in the East knew so little about him that they spelled his first name 'Abram.' Lincoln had won favorable notices for his Senate campaign against the incumbent Stephen A. Douglas in 1858—but he lost that election. Except for a single term in Congress more than a decade earlier, Lincoln was a stranger to the national political scene. The presumptive favorite for the Republican nomination was Senator William H. Seward of New York. And if his candidacy faltered, several other prominent Republicans were waiting in the wings, headed by Governor Salmon P. Chase of Ohio.
Review, 3914 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |