Reflections on Lincoln and English Studies (original) (raw)
Lincoln and Liberty: Wisdom for the Ages
Civil War Book Review, 2015
Essays on the Lessons of Lincoln Love of Abraham Lincoln is one thing that both conservatives and liberals each share. Many today, writes Lucas E. Morel in the preface to this informative and often provocative series of essays, are overly preoccupied with the 16th president's "openness to change" (ix). But to these contributors, Lincoln was "fairly well set in terms of his political philosophy" (xii). The essays in Lincoln and Liberty: Wisdom for the Ages "seek to understand Lincoln as he understood himself and attempted to make himself clear to his day and age" (xii), and illustrate that Lincoln still has much to teach us today. Indeed, there are insights here to broaden one's understanding of Lincoln for even the most seasoned scholar.
Lincoln, 2012
Political Writings and Speeches Abraham Lincoln occupies a unique place in the American pantheon. Symbol, sage, myth, and martyr, he is an American icon-Honest Abe and The Great Emancipator, a Janus-faced demigod sculpted in marble. But this is the post-assassination Lincoln. During his lifetime Lincoln elicited very different reactions. The writings and speeches presented in this scholarly edition illuminate Lincoln as a political thinker in the context of his own time and political situation. Opening with a concise yet rich introduction, the texts that follow are complete and carefully edited, with extensive annotation and footnotes to provide a clearer insight into Lincoln the man, the politician, and the political thinker. His views on race and slavery, on secession and civil war, and on the contradiction (as he saw it) between the Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal") and the original Constitution (which condones slavery) are laid out in Lincoln's own well-crafted words.
Teoria Polityki, 2020
My aim here is to extend and further explore the deeper meaning of a phrase I coined some years ago: "deadly hermeneutics" (Ball, 1987): 2 roughly, the idea that hermeneutics-the art of textual interpretation-can be, and often is, a deadly business, inasmuch as peoples' lives, liberties and well-being hang in the balance. I plan to proceed as follows. By way of introduction and illustration I first consider very briefly three modern examples of deadly hermeneutics. I then go on to provide a brief account of the hermeneutical-political situation in which Abraham Lincoln found himself in the 1850s in the run-up to the Civil War and subsequently during the war itself. This requires that I sketch an overview of the Southern case for secession and, more particularly, their interpretation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to legitimize that radical move. I then attempt to show how Lincoln invoked and used a counter-interpretation of the Declaration in his speeches on the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), the Dred Scott decision (1857), and his debates with Senator Stephen A. Douglas (1858). I next look at President Lincoln's interpretation of the Constitution in the Emancipation Proclamation (1863), his suspension of Habeas Corpus and, finally, his finest, briefest-and at the time highly controversial-Gettysburg Address.
Debating the Great Emancipator: Abraham Lincoln and our Public Memory
Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2010
In this essay I analyze the debate over Abraham Lincoln’s role in the emancipation of African American slaves. Speaking both to contemporary public memory and the evidence of history, I contend that when Lincoln discussed or wrote about emancipation between 1860 and 1863, his rhetoric exhibited a dialogic form that shifted responsibility from the president to congressional leaders and common citizens. I conclude that Lincoln’s dialogic rhetoric does not signal his opposition to emancipation but rather his deep belief that emancipation would become meaningful only afer the considered deliberation and action of the American people.