And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham
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Web ID: 15160534A compelling examination of Abraham Lincoln's lega
Abraham Lincoln's influence on American society is explored in "And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" by Jacques Boulenger. The book offers a distinctive viewpoint on the problems that defined Lincoln's presidency and paints a vivid picture of Lincoln's life, character, and legacy. Boulenger does an outstanding job of fusing historical details and personal tales to make a captivating story in his writing, which is both educational and entertaining. Lincoln's personality is examined in depth, as are his shifting opinions on topics like democracy, civil rights, and slavery. One aspect of the book that particularly interested me was how it shed light on the larger social and political setting of Lincoln's day. When it comes to the social and political trends that created American society at the time, Boulenger gives a thorough description. He also demonstrates how closely connected Lincoln's actions and convictions were to these more overarching historical causes. "And There Was Light" is an intelligent and well-written examination of Abraham Lincoln's life and legacy as a whole. The topics that shaped his presidency and had a long-lasting effect on American culture are thoughtfully and nuancedly addressed. Anyone interested in American history or in the life and career of Abraham Lincoln should definitely read this book, in my opinion.
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What tedious bore
It's too bad that Meacham isn't as good a writer as he thinks. This book takes pages to say what a better writer could say in a few paragraphs. Beyond that, he doesn't present any new information; it's mostly a rehash of old stuff. There are many, many good biographies of Lincoln, I would give this one a pass.
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I live in the Land of Lincoln
I enjoy historical biographies and this book did not disappoint. We as Americans still have much to learn about President Lincoln The Great Emancipator. He is the original Social Justice Warrior. This book like most biographies shares a well-written depiction of his life but furthermore his values and how Lincoln's values fell into conflicted with the issues of the day and southern slaveholders....as I read this book I continue to wonder how the America of today and our political parties became so twisted upside down with Lincoln's message. So much of America's history has been distorted in the last 20-30 years. I thought everyone knew the slave owners, KKK and modern day left were the ones fighting to keep slavery alive and well.
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Meacham's eloquence meets Lincoln's eminence
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words were written by an enslaver who held to white supremacy, yet they inspired a nation and inspires it still. A few (like Dr. King) have reached Lincoln’s heights, but no one has surpassed his personal struggle for a union without slavery. One of today’s great biographers of American history (Jon Meacham) eloquently takes on telling Lincoln’s life story to illustrate how its impact echoes to the present. Receiving little formal education, perhaps born illegitimately, self-trained as a lawyer, from the backwoods of the then-West, Lincoln rose to become perhaps the most eminent character of nineteenth-century world history. He embodied the hope of America by his story, and as president, he extended that hope through emancipation to an entire race. The struggle to fulfill that hope was passed on to the American people after his untimely assassination, and that struggle, led by imperfect but scrappy people, continues today. Lincoln is a giant, and he has been well-eulogized and well-chronicled by biographers since his death. Meacham is merely the latest to lend his pen towards the effort. But Meacham is no slouch and has a track record of enlivening the life stories of some of America’s greatest historical figures. As a fan of Meacham, I will say that this biography certainly fulfills his potential for eloquence, idealism, and directness. He reminds us all of the promise of self-government for all by all and of all and the hope to the world of the American experiment, despite our many flaws. Anyone who wishes to be inspired to do better as people will benefit from Meacham’s telling of Lincoln’s story.
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Lincoln and Equality
Jon Meacham’s biography does not sufficiently reveal how progressive Lincoln was as a politician and as a man. Abraham Lincoln does indeed deserve his reputation as the Great Emancipator and, moreover, a place in the quest for racial justice. He was not anti-Black. Neither was he anti-Native American. In Chicago, in July 1858, Abraham Lincoln pleaded with his audience, "let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man; this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position; discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal...I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal." Frederick Douglass was "impressed with his entire freedom from popular prejudice against the colored race" after meeting with Lincoln three times in the White House, and in 1865 called him "emphatically the black man's president." In the 1850's, Lincoln had stated that he did not feel that it "bettered their condition" to keep Blacks in America as "underlings." In a private letter, he wrote that he "abhors the oppression of Negroes"; and he was not just referring to slavery. Lincoln stated in that letter how slavery had "the power to make me miserable," because it denied Blacks the right, the hope, to rise in life. He also wrote for his private notes a reflection that basing slavery on skin color, or intellect or moral endowments was wrong-headed as everyone could be said to differ in all those regards to some degree or another. Later, in 1859, Lincoln wrote against those white men who "insidiously" argue that the principles of the Declaration of Independence only apply to whites. In another private letter, from the time, he said he had "no objection" to marriage between black and white. Yet in the 1858 Illinois US Senate race against Stephen Douglas, the race-baiting incumbent whose intent was to paint Lincoln as a dangerous radical, Lincoln was running against the territorial expansion of slavery, and before racist voters in Illinois. Thus he tailored his message during the debates, in statements such as that referenced in an interview with the local Black Student Union president where he expressed pessimism about the future of race relations in America acknowledging the audience's prejudices: "there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." These and other statements were made because in 1858 he could only really advocate an anti-slavery position. Lincoln never said Blacks were inherently inferior. But, if he had advocated, or left unanswered charges of being for, full equality in 1858, he would most certainly have committed political suicide. As one historian has said, had Lincoln not made concessions to the political climate, "the Lincoln of history simply would not exist." Lincoln did state that the purpose of the Declaration of Independence is to "augment the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere." Lincoln said the treatment of Blacks in the US did not "accord with justice." Colonization was always to be voluntary; President Lincoln felt white prejudice so intractable that he urged black leaders to consider it, saying, "Go where you are treated the best." The goal was the establishment of a black-run government and society, free of oppression. Colonization was abandoned as ventures failed, and African-Americans largely rejected it. Lincoln said blacks and whites would just have to "live out of the old relation and come out better prepared for the new." While disagreeing with the Radical Republicans as to tactics, he said that he shared their sentiments and that at least they were "facing Zionwards." It is not inconceivable that Lincoln still wished to afford those Blacks who wished to escape white racism the choice, even as he was working to include Blacks in the American polity. Frederick Douglass, who as a statesmen concerned with advancing the rights of Black Americans, placed a priority on work toward the achievement of those rights before seeking equal rights for women. Douglass certainly believed in women’s equality but felt Black rights would be jeopardized if not focused on first. Such is also the case with Lincoln, who did believe in freedom and equality, but who knew that freedom and equality in America would be moot points if disunion prevailed. Frederick Douglass knew this too: “His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.” His reputation as "Great Emancipator" rests not only on the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment with it's unprecedented enforcement clause and unneeded presidential signature, but his request of Frederick Douglass, before his re-election and the 13th Amendment, to devise a plan to get as many slaves as possible out of the South while his re-election, the issue of the Proclamation's constitutionality, and the outcome of the war seemed in doubt. President Lincoln also approved of bills abolishing segregation on omnibuses in D.C.; for allowing black witnesses in federal courts; for equalizing penalties for the same crime; for equal pay for black soldiers; for ending discrimination on the basis of color in hiring US Mail carriers. He welcomed, for the first time, an ambassador from Haiti; he publicly and equally credited Black troops as well as white for military successes; African-Americans picnicked on the White House grounds; his respect and equal treatment of Blacks both in Springfield, Illinois, before his presidency, and among his White House staff and at visits to field hospitals and troops is well-documented. He supported the activities of the Freedmen's Bureau. He approved the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of abandoned plantation lands to freedmen and their families. When he visited occupied Richmond, he took off his hat and returned the bow of an elderly black man--an act of equality noted by sullen white onlookers and the press alike. In what was to be his last public address, Lincoln called for public schooling for blacks, and for the vote for black soldiers and the well educated. John Wilkes Booth, in the crowd, seethed "that means —citizenship", and vowed that the speech would be Lincoln's last. Lincoln thus was killed because Black suffrage, Black rights, Black lives did matter to him. Also, noteworthy is Lincoln's promise following the 1862 Sioux-U.S. War. As a young man Lincoln had saved a Native American's life from bloodthirsty soldiers. Now, as President, Lincoln commuted the sentences of 265 Dakota men, having insisted that in review a distinction be made between murder or rape and participation in battle. Lincoln had earlier asked the Secretary of the Interior to look into the matter of Indian Affairs reform. When Bishop Henry Whipple visited Lincoln in Washington to plead the cause of the 303 condemned men and to inform Lincoln of the perfidy of Government agents toward the Indians, Lincoln said that he could "feel the rascality of this Indian business down to my boots" and vowed to several people that when "this war ends, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed!" He brought the subject up in Annual Message to Congress, but Congress did nothing. In 1864 Lincoln told the Native American rights advocate John Beeson, "You may rest assured that as soon as the pressing matters of this war is settled the Indians shall have my first care and I will not rest until Justice is done to their and your satisfaction." Lincoln had inherited a lamentable and deplorable Indian system. Who knows what a second term might have brought to US government—Native-American relations.
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And There Was Light - Jon Meacham
There are dozens of biographies and historical studies on Abraham Lincoln, so why another one? Simply put, as long as there is divisiveness then Lincoln can still teach us a thing or two. And with Jon Meacham at the helm the book is nothing short of amazing. Definitely not a paint by numbers historical record of events, but a nuanced look at a man we think we know (or should know at this point), but who can still amaze us and give us pause for thought. "Moral cowardice is something which I think I never had" Lincoln said, and is such a profound statement that speaks to how much we as a nation and as individuals have to strive towards. I cannot think of a better non-fiction book to recommend this year, to fans of history, of current affairs, politics or social sciences than Meacham's And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle; even though its themes and subject matter may be set in a long gone era, they are as relevant as ever to our struggles today!
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