Volume 56, Number 6 · April 9, 2009
A Different Lincoln
By James Oakes
Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter, 1860–1861
by Harold Holzer
Simon and Schuster, 623 pp., $30.00
Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the US Navy, and the Civil War
by Craig L. Symonds
Oxford University Press, 430 pp., $27.95
Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
by James M. McPherson
Penguin, 329 pp., $35.00
Etched into the pedestal of a statue of Daniel Webster that stands in Central Park not far from where I live are the most famous words from Webster's second reply to Robert Hayne during their 'great debate' of January 1830: 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.' Abraham Lincoln loved that speech and greatly admired the man who delivered it. For Lincoln, as for most Republicans in 1860, to revere the Union was to love liberty and loving liberty meant hating slavery. A lifelong Whig, Lincoln always saw his support for economic development as part of a larger vision of national unity. But after 1854, when he reentered public life as an antislavery politician, just about everything Lincoln said about the Union was closely bound up with his moral opposition to slavery. Lurking behind nearly every major political or military decision Lincoln made as president was his conviction that the problem of the Union and the problem of slavery were one and the same. So it's not quite right to say that Lincoln cared more about the Union than he did about slavery. His concern for the Union was inseparable from his hatred of slavery.
Review, 4312 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. |