Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era

"Lincoln Reconsidered" by David Donald ©1961 History has always been an interest for me. This takes a bit of time and expands on it very nicely. It starts out with a nice introdution about Lincoln and his times, the people he knew and worked with, then goes onto the politics and war. It had some anecdotes that you never see anywhere else. It turns out that Linoln was not a rabid emancipationist, but a pratical president who did things as needed to be done. I wondered before why he only freed the slaves in the states in rebellion: it was because he did not want to alienate the slaveholders in Kentucky and Maryland. I am still mystified as to the reason for the war of northern aggression: slavery does not seem to be the all inclusive answer that mythology makes it out to be, and this book shows some altenative reasons, but does not take a stand, after it is only a collection of essays.

Lincoln Reconsidered is a collection of provactive essays that probe the multiple depths of Abraham Lincoln--life and mythology. He paints Lincoln's portrait onto the background of the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War. Originally published about 1961, Donald's stories remain fresh and relevant. In fact the reader will encounter the thesis and outline for his recent prize-winning biography of Lincoln. I first encoutered LR in 1962 when I taught Advanced Placement American History and assigned portions of the book to my students. They loved it; you will. Donald is a superlative historian and stylist. Listen to these chapter headings: Getting Right With Lincoln, Reconsideration of Abolitionists, Herndon and Mrs. Lincoln, Folklore Lincoln, An Excess of Democracy. Readers of Donald's Lincoln will want to have this as a companion reference piece. It's rare for an historian's essays to experience such a rich and extended publishing history. Here's a quote from my faded copy of LR, a touch of wisdom for our parlous times: "...Lincoln knew that there were limits rational human activity, and that there was no virtue in irritably seeking to perform the impossible. As President, he could only do his best to handle problems as they arose and have a patient trusdt that popular support for his solutions would be forthcoming. But the ultimate decision was beyond his, or any man's, control. 'Now at the end of three years struggle,' he said, 'the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man, devised, or expected. God alone can claim it.'" Page after page runs like this, and virtually every theme connected to the Civil War gets enough discussion to stimulate and edify.