Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union Address

Today marks the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's historic address at New York City's Cooper Institute. A few years ago, no less than Harold Holzer boldly claimed that this speech -- and perhaps a photograph by Matthew Brady taken during this visit -- made Lincoln president.

Holzer is likely right. Certainly, Lincoln at Cooper Union, his book examining the speech, its preparation, context, and consequences is one of the best recent books on Lincoln (and was a finalist for the 2005 Lincoln Prize). At length, Holzer details Lincoln's preparation for this speech. Lincoln began with a simple question: What did the founders' believe was the role of the federal government in regulating slavery? Many in the slavery debate claimed that the founders were on their side. Lincoln painstakingly studied records in the Illinois State Law Library to determine how the founders actually voted on the issue of regulating slavery in the American territories. He determined that the Republican Party position correlated with the votes of the vast majority of the founders. In his Cooper Union address, Lincoln carefully presented these findings and then argued consequences based on them.

The speech proved that Lincoln, who had built the beginnings of a national reputation as the man who challenged Stephen Douglas to seven fierce debates, had intellectual power. The Cooper Union address is not built on wit or homespun stories, but on thoughtful analysis. But if we simply marvel at it today, without recognizing the habitual preparation behind it, we are like those Eastern crowds -- amazed that the backwoods, frontier lawyer could make such a smart, polished speech, but expecting him to return to his coarse jokes and rough ways, even as he goes to the White House.

Perhaps more interesting, and less commented on, is that this speech capably demonstrates one of Lincoln's greatest attributes -- his dogged preparation -- that is glimpsed throughout his life, and likely made Lincoln a great president. In fairness, much effort has been exhausted on examining certain aspects of Lincoln's meticulous personality. Douglas Wilson, in his remarkable book Lincoln's Sword, shows how Lincoln carefully edited his words before delivery or publication. Allen Guelzo, in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (oddly, the book that bested Holzer's for the 2005 Lincoln Prize), shows how carefully Lincoln considered the issue of emancipation and how he delicately, but determinedly, shaped the issue over the first 15 months of his presidency. In my estimation, though, no one has demonstrated Lincoln's similar deliberate instincts in his role as commander-in-chief. The onetime militiaman studied textbooks on military strategy and viewed demonstrations of modern military weapons in order to better understand how much his army could accomplish. As he became more confident in his military thinking, Lincoln became more proactive, and more effective, in dealing with his generals.

In short, I would argue (and this argument could be a book, so I'll be brief here) that Lincoln's preparation, which made his address at Cooper Union so important in his ascent to the presidency, was the same thing that had brought a frontier boy with little education from the backwoods of Kentucky and Indiana to the leadership of Illinois Republicans in 1860. This preparation also made Lincoln's presidency great, allowing him to lead effectively in the things he is most remembered for: saving the union, ending slavery, and his timeless words defending both those things.

The speech is well worth reading or re-reading. The full text is available in several places, including Holzer's book and countless collections of Lincoln speeches. It is also available online, courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Association and the University of Michigan Library, in their full-text Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.

Book Review: Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words

Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words

by Douglas L. Wilson

(Knopf, 2006), hardcover, 352 pages

In the recent resurgence of books about Abraham Lincoln, which rivals the output of the early 1900s in quantity and significance, there have been a number of books about individual Lincoln speeches. Beginning with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Wills, recent books by Harold Holzer, Gabor Boritt, and Ronald White have focused on the Cooper Union Address, Gettysburg Address (again), and the Second Inaugural Address, respectively. These books, and others like them, show the context within which Lincoln wrote these famous speeches and include an often excellent examination of the meaning of Lincoln's words.

Douglas Wilson goes deeper, though, in his excellent study Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words. While he refers to the context and meaning of the Lincoln works that he studies, he focuses on Lincoln's process of deliberately shaping his words. Focusing on writings and speeches of President Lincoln for which there are multiple drafts, Wilson paints a picture of a man who skillfully crafts his public statements through careful writing, editing, and re-writing.

Following an opening chapter on Lincoln's famous "Farewell Address," given as he departed his hometown Springfield for Washington to assume the presidency, where Wilson examines how Lincoln edited his extemporaneous remarks into a more polished speech for publication in newspapers, Wilson digs into several key Lincoln writings, including the famous speeches (First and Second Inaugurals and Gettysburg), key government papers (the Emancipation Proclamation, messages to Congress), and some public letters (notably Lincoln's famous response to Horace Greeley's editorial "The Prayer of Twenty Millions").

Wilson's observation that Lincoln meticulously prepared his words is not original; others have detailed how Lincoln carefully wrote things like the Cooper Union Address or the First Inaugural. In the case of the latter, attention has been paid to how Lincoln incorporated the advice of others who read a draft of his speech, famously Secretary of State-designate William Seward, into his final address. Wilson instead details how Lincoln consistently crafted his words and shows how the process allowed Lincoln to clarify his aims.

The analysis of the July 4, 1861 Message to Congress, in which Lincoln called for a massive increase in military spending to counter the rebellion, exemplifies Wilson's skillful attention to the nuances of Lincoln's drafting. One particularly interesting passage involves Lincoln's use of the word "sugar-coated" to describe the public rationale given by southern leaders supporting secession. The printer thought the word undignified; Wilson shows that it perfectly conveys the thrust of Lincoln's argument against secession.

At the end of this particular chapter, Wilson details some of the reactions to Lincoln's message, including a couple that remark favorably on Lincoln's skill as a writer. With these comments, Wilson begins the overarching and original argument of his book: Lincoln grew to recognize the power of his own words and became more confident and capable using them to shape public opinion and public understanding. Such an hypothesis is perhaps not novel; being a sophisticated reader able to demonstrate a shift in context through written words alone, though, is indeed unique. In the process, Wilson offers satisfying analyses of these selected writings and adds to the understanding of why Lincoln's writing remains so influential, while rather convincingly arguing that Lincoln's greatest attribute as a wartime leader was his disciplined writing.

It is not surprisingly that Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, offers such a sophisticated study, given his previous work with Lincoln. After spending years, with his co-director Rodney Davis, sorting through and editing all of the letters and interviews William Herndon collected about Lincoln's youth from people "who knew him when," Wilson then wrote the best account of Lincoln as a young adult: Honor's Voice, which won the Lincoln Prize in 1999. After spending years overseeing the transcription and annotation of the Library of Congress' collection of Lincoln materials, again with Davis, he wrote this fine volume, which won the Lincoln Prize in 2007.

It is difficult to quibble with Wilson's work. Certainly those without a working knowledge of the timeline of the Lincoln presidency will find it challenging to get their bearings, as Wilson supposes some familiarity with the Lincoln presidency and the issues surrounding the Civil War. However, the writing itself is clear and comprehensible, if not rather beguiling. It is a significant addition to the vast bibliography of Lincoln-related scholarship, particularly relating to Lincoln the writer, Lincoln the orator, and Lincoln the shaper of American memory.

Lincoln Symposium at the Library of Congress

On March 4, the Library of Congress sponsored a symposium on Abraham Lincoln, held in conjunction with their fantastic bicentennial exhibition "With Malice Toward None" (which I will overview in an upcoming entry). The symposium, held on the 148th anniversary of Lincoln's first inauguration (and, though unsaid, the 144th anniversary of Lincoln's second inauguration), featured six lectures, mostly focusing on aspects directly related to Lincoln's presidency.

I was fortunate to attend the lectures, held in the Coolidge Auditorium in the basement of the Jefferson Building. While the room was warm and there weren't long enough breaks (leading to information overload by the end of the day), the audience was large and rightfully appreciative of the speakers, who offered mostly excellent and accessible remarks.

Yesterday, the Library of Congress uploaded the lectures onto the webcast section of their website, meaning that you can listen to any or all of them -- total running time with introductions and questions is 320 minutes. The first three lectures (Holzer, McPherson, Miller) are here; the second three (Morel, Wilson, Leonard) are here. [Until I attended the symposium, I had no idea that the Library of Congress was putting such things online. Kudos to them for embracing the technology and broadening the reach of the Library's programming.]

While the six lectures were on a variety of themes, it was surprising how there were similar undercurrents throughout several, and occasionally all, of the talks. Race was a key issue in all of the talks in one way or another, owing to the persistent questions about whether Lincoln was a racist throughout his life. Another consistent theme was Lincoln's determined self-improvement: whether learning to be commander in chief, or carefully crafting his messages and speeches, Lincoln was persistent in his attempts to become more capable at his tasks. The most surprising thread through the day was the repeated focus -- and repeated quoting -- of Lincoln's 1854 speech at Peoria, debating Stephen Douglas on the rationale for the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Evidently Lewis Lehrman's recent book, Lincoln at Peoria, is much more influential than I had realized.

A synopsis of the six lectures follows, with highlights of things that piqued my interest in the various talks.

Harold Holzer, co-chair of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and author or editor of multiple Lincoln books, led off the symposium with the day's most polished lecture, "Lincoln Comes to Washington: The Journey of a President-Elect." Drawn from his newest monograph, Lincoln President-Elect, Holzer presented a balanced lecture of fact, analysis, and colorful anecdotes. He centered his remarks on an extended look at Lincoln's Farewell Address, given to his neighbors at the train station in Springfield on February 11 when he boarded his train to Washington DC.

In perhaps his most interesting point, Holzer paid particular attention to how Lincoln compares himself to Washington: "Today I leave you; I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington." Such a blatant equal comparison to Washington was highly unusual, if not almost impolitic at the time. Holzer carefully showed that it's inclusion in these unplanned remarks was not accidental, given that Lincoln uses variations of the comparison in later speeches along his journey from Springfield to Washington. The larger implications of this dramatic comparison, where Lincoln suggests he might be Washington's equal rather than merely his successor, were left unexplored, owing to time constraints and the otherwise general nature of the enjoyable lecture.

Pulitzer-Prize winning historian James McPherson followed with a talk on "Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief," no doubt drawn from McPherson's recent Lincoln Prize-winner, Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. McPherson, a noted military historian, explained that Lincoln had four roles as Commander in Chief: 1) to raise and equip the military, 2) to oversee political strategy related to the war, 3) to oversee military strategy, and 4) to oversee operational strategy. Of these, McPherson was most interested in the fourth, which involved Lincoln planning how to implement his general military strategy through battle campaigns (something modern presidents generally leave to the military leaders). Noting that Lincoln was inexperienced and uneducated about the military before becoming president, McPherson noted how his study of military affairs and tactics led to his evolving skills as a military leader.

Given McPherson's obvious interest in Lincoln's unexpected involvement in military operations, it is curious that he spent little energy comparing Lincoln to his Confederate counterpart Jefferson Davis, who was educated at West Point and had served as Secretary of War. At the war's outset, it was thought Davis might actively lead the Confederate Army as a general in the field; still, he was an active commander in chief too, but of a very different model than Lincoln.

William Lee Miller, author of Lincoln's Virtues and President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman offered a reflection of the comparison between Presidents Lincoln and Obama in his lecture "A New Birth of Freedom." Unlike the preceding talks, Miller's was obviously written specifically for the symposium, and included observations from Obama's inauguration and the bicentennial celebration just three weeks before. The talk was filled with examples of Miller's quick wit and sense of irony, as well as his intellectual curiosity. As many others have, he reflected on how Obama's election fulfills the promise of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and his subsequent support for plans to allow black soldiers to vote. He tied this observation to an argument from his latest book about how the Emancipation Proclamation was more significant morally than legally.

After lunch, Lucas Morel, author of Lincoln's Sacred Effort: Defining Religion's Role in American Self-Government, spoke on "Lincoln on Race, Equality, and the Spirit of '76." The talk served as an exploration of Lincoln's views on race, which recently have received a great deal of scrutiny. Unlike some scholars, Morel defended Lincoln's views on race, arguing that they were progressive. In fact, contrary to those who see some of Lincoln's statements on race as proof of racism, Morel argued that "even his most extreme comments" were meant to nudge his racist audience toward accepting a form of natural equality, like the one implied by the Declaration of Independence. To defend this argument, Morel pointed to Lincoln's "hesitancy" when speaking about race throughout his career, which is certainly an interesting approach to Lincoln.

Douglas Wilson, who spent years co-editing the definitive collection of Herndon's interviews, has recently turned his attention to Lincoln the writer. In his talk, "Words Fitly Spoken: Lincoln and Language," Wilson focused on Lincoln the careful re-writer and editor in preparing his speeches, an extension of his recent study, Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words. Unlike that book, which focuses on the presidential years (and Lincoln's Farewell Address in Springfield), Wilson turned his attention to pre-presidential speeches, but saw the same careful editing from draft to finished product.

Finishing out the day was Elizabeth Leonard, author of Lincoln's Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion After the Civil War, who spoke on "Ally on the Team of Rivals: Lincoln and His Point Man for Military Justice." Leonard spoke about Joseph Holt, the Kentucky Democrat who became Lincoln's Judge Advocate General in late 1862 and who worked beside Lincoln on issues of pardons in military cases. This was the afternoon's least polished talk, an exploration of Holt's biography, that suggests Leonard is still assimilating her research. While I was unconvinced by her argument -- she twice asked why Holt allied with Lincoln and never gave a satisfying answer -- I was convinced that she could develop a new biography of Holt or a book about the Lincoln/Holt professional relationship.

Sunday Book Reviews

Both The New York Times and The Washington Post have weekend book sections with Abraham Lincoln features today. The Post's is more extensive, featuring two reviews and then an overview of recent Lincoln books, while the Times has a lengthy piece on recent books by longtime contributor William Safire.

The Post reviews are fairly straightforward, featuring yet another positive review of Ronald White's A. Lincoln. Although I was not a fan of White's book on Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, I am quickly becoming convinced from the number of glowing reviews that this is likely a significant new biography. Also today there is a review of a new biography of Mrs. Lincoln, in which the reviewer is curiously ambivalent about whether Mary Lincoln merits an individual biography.

The overviews of recent biography in both papers are intriguing for their tones, including the fact that both writers feel compelled to regurgitate the long-time publishing joke about how a book on 'Lincoln's doctor's dog' would be an instant best-seller.

Setting this aside, both seem to take the opposite approach on the subject: in the Post, Fred Kaplan seem so repulsed by the number and length of Lincoln books that I half expect him to propose book-burning as a solution. This is odd given that Kaplan himself is the author of a recent book on Lincoln (Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer). Of course, he suggests that authors should limit themselves to one book only on Abraham Lincoln, which is a staggeringly short-sighted view. I gather that Kaplan will limit himself to only one book (which is his right), but I hesitate to think of others, like the prolific and enthusiastic Harold Holzer or the longtime student of Lincoln David Herbert Donald or the superstar of the next generation Douglas Wilson -- all of whom have published several significant books on Lincoln. And given his rather blase rebuttal of Michael Burlingame's recent multi-volume Lincoln biography (the first significant multi-volume work on Lincoln in decades, fitting into an older tradition of Lincoln biography) based on its length suggests that Kaplan does not really have the depth of reading in the Lincoln field to be writing generally about it. Of course, on that the editors of the Post clearly seem to disagree with me.

William Safire's lengthier piece in the Times is odd in that he seems rather eager to write his own Lincoln book to add to recent titles. Safire has a much longer introduction before he considers several important recent titles, including the aforementioned ones by White and Burlingame. He also gives attention to the new Library of America title, The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now which is certainly among the most intriguing of the bicentennial books; drawing from countless authors over almost 150 years, this volume allows one to glimpse the evolution of Lincoln's legacy. After this, though, Safire enters into an extended commentary where he suggests possible inquiries for future Lincoln books, including one that might be described as contrafactual history. As a whole, the column is interesting, but also a bit odd.