Becoming Lincoln: Recent Episodes
Brian Lyman
Abraham Lincoln delivered a powerful closing argument at the final Lincoln-Douglas Debate. Republicans triumphed in contests around the country. But then the Illinois Senate race got an October surprise.
Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
"Crittenden to Douglas," The Ottawa Free Trader, Oct. 30, 1858
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed., The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Knox-College, Lincoln Studies Center, 2008.
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Foner, Eric, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.
"Great Republican Triumph," Chicago Tribune, Oct. 14, 1858.
Guelzo, Alan, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
Klotter, James, Henry Clay: The Man Who Would Be President. Oxford University Press, 2018.
"Political Meetings at Taylorville," Illinois State Journal, Sept. 13, 1858.
Peck, Graham, Making an Anti-Slavery Nation: Lincoln, Douglas and the Battle Over Freedom. University of Illinois Press, 2020.
As Stephen Douglas staggered under alcohol, illness and the repetition of old ideas, Abraham Lincoln found the clear distinction between them in their debates -- and hammered his opponent pitilessly over his indifference to slavery.
Sources used:
Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed., The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Knox-College Lincoln Studies Center, 2008.
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Foner, Eric, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.
Guelzo, Alan, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
In an attempt to respond to Stephen Douglas' relentless race-baiting, Abraham Lincoln reaches the moral nadir of his political life. But from the depths of this disaster he starts finding an argument that he will wield with far more effectiveness in the later debates.
Sources used:
Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed., The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Knox-CollegeLincoln Studies Center, 2008.
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Foner, Eric, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.
Guelzo, Alan, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates had some eloquence, lots of repetition and much in the way of grubby politicking. Stephen Douglas hit hard at Abraham Lincoln in the first contest in Ottawa, and Lincoln hit back at the second in Freeport.
Sources used:
Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed., The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Knox-CollegeLincoln Studies Center, 2008.
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Finkleman, Paul, Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford Books, 1997.
Foner, Eric, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.
Guelzo, Alan, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
Abraham Lincoln's House Divided speech drew clear lines between Democrats and Republicans as the 1858 U.S. Senate campaign in Illinois got underway.
Sources used:
Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Finkleman, Paul, Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford Books, 1997.
Foner, Eric, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.
Guelzo, Alan, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
A rift between Stephen Douglas and President James Buchanan appeared to give Abraham Lincoln a break in his run for U.S. Senate. But Lincoln began scrambling to pull Republicans behind him after Douglas started flirting with a bipartisan anti-Buchanan coalition.
Sources used:
"A Bad Sign." Illinois State Journal, April 14, 1858, p. 2
Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Guelzo, Alan, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
Kluger, Richard, The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune. Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.
Morris, Roy Jr. The Long Pursuit: Abraham Lincoln's 30-Year Struggle With Stephen Douglas for the Heart and Soul of America. Smithsonian Books, 2008.
Quitt, Martin H. Stephen A. Douglas and Antebellum Democracy. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Wilentz, Sean, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.
The Scott family's decade-long fight to claim the freedom owed to them under the law ran into state and federal judges determined to close the courts -- and broader citizenship -- to Black Americans. For white Americans like Abraham Lincoln, the Dred Scott ruling forced them to consider how denial of rights to one group of people could leave everyone else's rights open to question.
Sources used:
Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Donald, David Herbert, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War. Alfred A. Knopf, 1960.
"Dred Scott." The New York Times, Sept. 21, 1858, p. 4.
Finkelman, Paul, Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford Books; 1997.
Foner, Eric, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.
Quitt, Martin H. Stephen A. Douglas and Antebellum Democracy. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Ripley, C. Peter, ed. Witness For Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery and Emancipation. The University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
Wilentz, Sean, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.
The 1856 presidential election took place amid a backdrop of violence in Kansas and Congress. Abraham Lincoln threw himself into the fight for the Republican Party and free territories.
Sources used:
"1856 Democratic Party Platform," hosted on the University of California Santa Barbara's American Presidency Project.
Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Donald, David Herbert, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War. Alfred A. Knopf, 1960.
Etcheson, Nicole, "A Living, Creeping Lie: Abraham Lincoln on Popular Sovereignty." Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association; Vol. 29, Issue 2, Summer 2008.
Foner, Eric, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.
Hernon, William with Weik, Jesse, Herndon's Lincoln, ed. Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2006.
Holt, Michael, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. Oxford University Press; 1999.
Inskeep, Steve, Imperfect Union: How Jesse and John Fremont Mapped te West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause The Civil War. Penguin Press; 2020.
Leech, Liz, "Kansas Territorial Elections 1855: Let 'Em Vote or They'll Tear the House Down," on JeffersonJayHawkers.com.
"Republican Party Platform of 1856," hosted on the University of California Santa Barbara's American Presidency Project.
Sumner, Charles, "The Crime Against Kansas," via the U.S. Senate website.
Wilentz, Sean, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.
As the Whig Party withered away in 1855, Abraham Lincoln found himself pulled toward the new Republican Party -- an organization that not only stood foursquare against slavery's expansion, but brought economic vision that reflected northern attitudes and stood against enslavement.
Sources used:
Blumenthal, Sidney: All The Powers of Earth. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Burlingame, Michael, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. (Vol. 1). The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
Davis, Rodney and Wilson, Douglas, ed. Herndon on Lincoln: Letters. Knox College Lincoln Studies Center, 2016.
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Foner, Eric, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War. Oxford University Press, 1995.
Foner, Eric, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton and Company, 2011.
Holt, Michael, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. Oxford University Press; 1999.
Sumner, Charles, "Equality before the law, unconstitutionality of separate colored schools in Massachusetts : argument of Charles Sumner, Esq., before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the case of Sarah C. Roberts vs. The City of Boston, December 4, 1849." hosted on the Library of Congress website.
Wilentz, Sean, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.
Being an enslaved person in America in the 1850s meant the ever-present threat of violence and separation from loved ones. And throughout the decade, the white South became increasingly determined to spread it as far as they could.
Sources for this episode:
Berlin, Ira and Rowland, Leslie, ed. Families and Freedom: A Documetary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era. The New Press; 1997.
Berlin, Ira, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves. Belknap Press; 2003
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938. Hosted by the Library of Congress.
Berry, Dana Ramey, Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia. University of Illinois Press; 2007
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 1953 Edition hosted by the University of Michigan.
Genovese, Eugene, Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made. Vintage Books; 1972.
Johnson, Walter. Soul By Soul: Life Inside The Antebellum Slave Market. Harvard University Press, 1999.
Mellon, James, ed. Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember. Grove Press; 1988
McCurry, Stephanie, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, ad the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country. Oxford University Press; 1995.
McDonald, Roderick, "Independent Economic Production By Slaves on Antebellum Louisiana Sugar Plantations" in Cultivation and Culture, Labor and the Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas, eds. Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan. University Press of Virginia; 1993.
Rothman, Joshua D., The Ledger and The Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America. Basic Books; 2021.
Waller, John C., Health and Wellness in 19th Century America. Greenwood; 2014.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act threw American politics into chaos in 1854. The two-party duopoly that existed for the previous 20 years was swept away in the space of a few months. As Abraham Lincoln fought for the anti-Nebraska coalition in Illinois, he found himself with an unexpected political opportunity -- followed by the most difficult decision of his career to that point.
Nursing his own ambitions and trying to hold onto his power in the U.S. Senate, Stephen Douglas agreed to introduce legislation repealing the Missouri Compromise and opening the upper Midwest to slavery. The brazen assault by pro-slavery forces upended the nation's party system and brought Abraham Lincoln to the forefront of the forces opposing Douglas and defending the Declaration of Independence.
Abraham Lincoln would never had become president had he not locked horns with Stephen Douglas, whose rapid rise through Illinois politics quickly made him a national icon. Douglas' life had some parallels to Lincoln's, and in many ways, his attraction to money and flexible policy better embodied the America of the early 1850s than the old parties did.
Abraham Lincoln's racial attitudes were complicated. He was willing to defend fugitive slaves and appears to have lived in what was (for its time) an integrated neighborhood. But he also defended a slaveholder in court, and advocated for schemes to persuade African-Americans to leave the land of their birth.
Abraham Lincoln's law practice was dominated by debt cases and the messy but commonplace disputes that make up a legal practice then and now. He plied his trade throughout central Illinois and was a popular companion for other attorneys in his field. But was he a good lawyer?
Mary Lincoln's domestic life often involved working as a single parent and managing tight finances while her husband was out making a living. Both parents were devoted to their children, and faced devastation when their son Eddie became sick in late 1849. Less than a year later, Abraham Lincoln made a fateful choice when he received word that his father Thomas was ill.
As he returned for the final congressional session of his term, Abraham Lincoln tried to lay the groundwork for the future of his party -- by proposing the abolition of slavery within the District of Columbia, and in using the patronage powers of the newly elected Whig president. But opposing forces, and Lincoln's underestimation of them, led to disappointment.
The Whigs were desperate for victory in 1848, and Abraham Lincoln joined a group promoting the candidacy of General Zachary Taylor. Lincoln showed that he could be an effective speaker -- but he could not have foreseen that his efforts would help destroy the party that he had devoted his life to.
The U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1846 sparked a humanitarian catastrophe that had profound consequences for both countries. Abraham Lincoln joined a Whig fight against the war.
As Abraham Lincoln moved to secure the Whig nomination for Congress in 1846, he had to confront the ambitions of an old friend for the seat, and the growing power of the abolitionists within his district.
By 1842, Abraham Lincoln had completed a long and painful journey into the middle class. He was an established attorney and had married into a prominent family. But politics would force him to reckon with the costs of his decisions -- and later, confront a grief he had never left behind.
As Abraham Lincoln recovered from his nervous breakdown, he further focused on ways to allow his head to control his heart. Yet as 1842 unfolded, he found himself in a potentially deadly fight with a political rival, and growing closer to Mary Todd.
His personal and professional bonds all snapped at once at the end of 1840. It proved a prelude to the worst emotional crisis of Lincoln's life, one that he would need a full year to pull himself out of.
With the Whig Party appearing poised for a major breakthrough in 1840, Abraham Lincoln campaigned hard, showing a desperation that led him to attack individuals and fall back on the shameful race-baiting that defined his youth. Toward the end of the year, he became involved with a young woman in Springfield, named Mary Todd.
As an economic depression hardened party lines, Abraham Lincoln became an enthusiastic Whig partisan, fighting hard to get his law partner into Congress. During the contest, the lynching of a black man and the later murder of a newspaper editor led him to deliver his first notable public address.
Abraham Lincoln arrived in Springfield a deeply insecure and troubled man. He would quickly make a lifelong friend, and just as quickly lose a potential bride.
As Abraham Lincoln rose in the ranks of the Illinois Whig Party, he displayed strong political skills that played a key role in getting the capital of Illinois moved to Springfield. He also showed political opportunism, and frequently, appalling racism in trying to bring voters to his party's column
In 1835, Abraham Lincoln was starting his political career; beginning his law studies; working two jobs and struggling with debt. The death of a young woman would help push him to his first nervous breakdown.
After a disastrous business failure, Lincoln struggled to find his professional footing and continue his self-education. His program would bring him to unorthodox religious beliefs that would present a challenge for his political ambitions.
In the commercial village of New Salem, Abraham Lincoln began gathering friends and allies who helped launch his political and professional career -- and later, mythologized him.
Sarah Lincoln Grigsby seems to have had all the talents of her brother -- wit, charm and an ability to put people at ease. But she never had Abraham's opportunities.
Rented out for manual labor he hated, Abraham Lincoln desperately sought ways to escape, whether down the river or through self-education.
The Lincolns tried to restart in Indiana. But a major tragedy would change the course of their lives.
In his Kentucky childhood, Abraham Lincoln heard anti-slavery messages, and witnessed his father's fight to hold onto what was his. Both would shape his life.
Abraham Lincoln came from a restless family that pushed ever further west to improve their fortunes. But his father struggled to survive, and his mother was chased by gossip throughout her life.
Abraham Lincoln's apotheosis began from the moment of his death in 1865. The searches for the real man started soon after. Who was he, and why can so many people see so many different characteristics in a single life?