Both cynical and self-serving, Illinois' seventh governor, Thomas Ford, also possessed an unrivaled sensitivity to the dynamics of frontier life. He reveals these and other qualities in his classic History of Illinois, which covers the state's first thirty years. Ford writes with candor of the lengthy "Hancock County difficulties" and the ouster of Mormons from the state, a considerable feat in light of his personal anti-Mormon tendencies. His lengthy treatment of the Black Hawk War and his writings on the slavery controversy in the state, the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, and the larger issues...
Both cynical and self-serving, Illinois' seventh governor, Thomas Ford, also possessed an unrivaled sensitivity to the dynamics of frontier life. He r...
Publication of this long-awaited volume makes available for the first time in complete and accessible form the most important source of information on Lincoln's early life. For twenty-five years after the president's death William Herndon, his law partner, conducted interviews with and solicited letters from dozens of persons who knew Lincoln personally. Up to now, the valuable information he collected has been available only in a microfilm edition in the Library of Congress, of such poor quality that it has been rarely used, particularly since there was no table of contents or adequate...
Publication of this long-awaited volume makes available for the first time in complete and accessible form the most important source of information on...
Although the northern Illinois chapters of the story of Susan Sukey Richardson s escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad are documented, the part played by southern Illinois in that historic episode has remained obscure. Carol Pirtle changes that with her investigation into the 1843 suit Andrew Borders lodged against William Hayes, charging his neighbor with helping slaves from the Borders estate escape to Galesburg. In conjunction with her probe into the past, Pirtle also discovered the Hayes correspondence.Pirtle documents Hayes s involvement in the Illinois Underground Railroad...
Although the northern Illinois chapters of the story of Susan Sukey Richardson s escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad are documented, the p...
Complex and paradoxical, Nehemiah Matson (18161873) celebrated the occupation of the Middle West by European pioneers even as he labored to preserve the memory of the natives these pioneers replaced. He perpetuated the memory of the Indians who were driven out of the territory, but he nevertheless accumulated wealth selling their land to the pioneers. Rodney O. Davis notes in his new foreword to this book that Matson combined the attributes of a scholar with those of a salesman and promoter.Matson settled in Princeton, Illinois, in 1836. He left behind a library partially endowed by him,...
Complex and paradoxical, Nehemiah Matson (18161873) celebrated the occupation of the Middle West by European pioneers even as he labored to preserve t...
While the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas are undoubtedly the most celebrated in American history, they may also be the most consequential as well. For the issues so fiercely debated in 1858 were about various interrelated aspects of one momentous, nation-threatening issue: slavery. The contest between Lincoln and Douglas became a testing ground for the viability of conflicting ideals in a nation deeply divided. One of the most colorful and engaging episodes in American history, this series of debates is of enduring interest as an illuminating instance of the...
While the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas are undoubtedly the most celebrated in American history, they may also be the most...
William H. Herndon Douglas L. Wilson Rodney O. Davis
William H. Herndon aspired to write a faithful portrait of his friend and law partner, Abraham Lincoln, based on his own observations and on hundreds of letters and interviews he had compiled for the purpose. Even more important, he was determined to present Lincoln as a man, rather than a saint, and to reveal things that the prevailing Victorian conventions said should be left out of the biography of a great national hero. A variety of obstacles kept Herndon from writing his book, however, and not until he found a collaborator in Jesse W. Weik did the biography begin to take shape. It...
William H. Herndon aspired to write a faithful portrait of his friend and law partner, Abraham Lincoln, based on his own observations and on hundreds ...
While the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas are undoubtedly the most celebrated in American history, they may also be the most consequential as well. For the issues so fiercely debated in 1858 were about various interrelated aspects of one momentous, nation-threatening issue: slavery. The contest between Lincoln and Douglas became a testing ground for the viability of conflicting ideals in a nation deeply divided. One of the most colorful and engaging episodes in American history, this series of debates is of enduring interest as an illuminating instance of the...
While the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas are undoubtedly the most celebrated in American history, they may also be the most...
William H. Herndon Rodney O. Davis Douglas L. Wilson
After Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, William H. Herndon began work on a brief, "subjective" biography of his former law partner, but his research turned up such unexpected and often startling information that it became a lifelong obsession. The biography finally published in 1889, Herndon's Lincoln, was a collaboration with Jesse W. Weik in which Herndon provided the materials and Weik did almost all the writing. For this reason, and because so much of what Herndon had to say about Lincoln was not included in the biography, David Donald has observed, "To understand Herndon's own...
After Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, William H. Herndon began work on a brief, "subjective" biography of his former law partner, but his res...
