Abraham Lincoln: A Documentary Portrait Through His Speeches and Writings

by Abraham Lincoln, Don E. Fehrenbacher (Editor)

A Stanford University Press classic.

318 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1964

About the author

Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States from 1861 and led the country during the Civil War.

Lincoln, a moderate, navigated a contentious array of factions with friends and opponents from the Democratic Party and Republican Party. He exploited mutual enmity of the factions, carefully distributing political patronage, and appealed to the American people.

Lincoln closely supervised the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals, and implemented a naval blockade of the trade. He suspended habeas corpus in Maryland and elsewhere, and averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared free all enslaved persons in states "in rebellion against the United States." It also directed the Navy to "recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons" and to receive them "into the armed service." Lincoln promoted the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime.

Lincoln managed his own successful re-election campaign and sought to heal the war-torn nation through reconciliation. On April 14, 1865, just five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, he attended a play at theater of Ford in Washington, District of Columbia, with Mary Todd Lincoln, his wife, when Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Boothe fatally assassinated him.

Lincoln is remembered as a martyr and a national hero for for his efforts to preserve the union and abolish slavery. Popular and scholarly polls often rank Lincoln as the greatest president in American history.

Reviews

[Clara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes, when I need a good cry, I read the Gettysburg Address. It works like a charm every single time.