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...
The provocative selections in this book address topics as disparate as William H. Herndon and his informants, Lincoln's favorite poem, his mysterious broken engagement, the text of his debates with Stephen A. Douglas, and a previously unknown assault on Peter Cartwright. They also provide a fresh look at some of the affinities between Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson.
The provocative selections in this book address topics as disparate as William H. Herndon and his informants, Lincoln's favorite poem, his mysterious ...
Abraham Lincoln's remarkable emergence from the rural Midwest and his rise to the presidency have been the stuff of romance and legend. But as Douglas L. Wilson shows us in Honor's Voice, Lincoln's transformation was not one long triumphal march, but a process that was more than once seriously derailed. There were times, in his journey from storekeeper and mill operator to lawyer and member of the Illinois state legislature, when Lincoln lost his nerve and self-confidence - on at least two occasions he became so despondent as to appear suicidal - and when his acute emotional vulnerabilities...
Abraham Lincoln's remarkable emergence from the rural Midwest and his rise to the presidency have been the stuff of romance and legend. But as Douglas...
George Santayana probably did more than anyone except Alexis de Tocqueville to shape the critical view of American culture. The great philosopher and writer coined the phrase "genteel tradition," introducing it to a California audience in 1911. The phrase caught fire, giving a name to the culture of the republic. Santayana's address appears in this collection of influential essays about the country he lived in from 1872 to 1912. Because he remained European in spirit, the Spaniard brought a sharp detachment to his observations. He points out the American split between thought and action,...
George Santayana probably did more than anyone except Alexis de Tocqueville to shape the critical view of American culture. The great philosopher and ...
This brilliant and unprecedented examination by an acclaimed Lincoln scholar reveals how Lincoln used the power of words to build his political career and to help keep the country united during the Civil War.
This brilliant and unprecedented examination by an acclaimed Lincoln scholar reveals how Lincoln used the power of words to build his political career...
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...
