Lincoln on Lincoln

Front Cover
University Press of Kentucky, Jan 1, 1999 - Biography & Autobiography - 198 pages
Even though Abraham Lincoln has been the subject of numerous biographies, his personality remains an enigma. For the 1860 presidential race he prepared two sketches of his life. These brief campaign portraits provide the core around which Paul Zall weaves extracts from correspondence, speeches, and interviews to produce an in-depth biography.

These descriptions from Lincoln's speeches and correspondence offer a window into his soul and mind. Lincoln's own words reveal an emotional evolution typically submerged in political biographies. They explain, to a degree not previously understood, the great mystery of his life: the process through which he matured from laborer to store clerk to country lawyer to our greatest president. Of the various internal struggles that plagued him throughout this evolution, perhaps the most compelling is his attempt to reconcile his conscience with the rule of the Constitution.

Zall frames lincoln's words with his own illuminating commentary, providing a continuous, compelling narrative. Beginning with Lincoln's thoughts on his parents, the story moves though his youth and early successes and failures in law and politics, and culminates in his clashes and conflicts -internal as well as external -- as president of a divided country.

Abraham Lincoln was not the kind of person to bare his soul in public or in private. "Even between ourselves, " lamented Mary Todd Lincoln, "his expressions were few." Zall allows the sixteenth president to reveal his innermost thoughts, providing a fascinating glimpse of the man.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
1
List of Abbreviations
5
1 Surviving the Frontier
7
2 Finding a New Life in New Salem
21
3 Seeking a Fortune in Springfield
35
4 Making His Way with Wit and Wisdom
69
5 Stumping the State and the Nation
89
6 Preserving Protecting Defending
115
7 Making Peace All Passion Spent
145
Notes
175
Selected Bibliography
183
Index
191
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