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Book Review
| Lincoln's Last Months. By William C. Harris. (Cambridge: Belknap, 2004. xii, 303 pp. $27.95, ISBN 0-674-01199-6.)
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| Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers' Home. By Matthew Pinsker. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. xvi, 256 pp. $30.00, ISBN 0-19-516206-4.)
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| Race relations, war, and religion; the superiority of free institutions to systems of dependency; political intelligence and statesmanship of the highest order for the sake of republican union and liberty: little wonder that the life of Abraham Lincoln, defined by this manifold of subjects, remains of historical interest. These new works by William C. Harris and Matthew Pinsker affirm Lincoln's enduring appeal, almost in defiance of changing cultural tastes. Unselfconsciously—that is to say, neither apologetically nor with academic conceit—Harris and Pinsker address a general readership, in addition to Lincoln specialists. Their books are expository narratives intended to inform, not rhetorical arguments designed to persuade. |
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Harris's Lincoln's Last Months is an account of political and military events from July 1864 to Lincoln's assassination. It is an enlargement, in part, of the picture presented by Harris in With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union (1997). Harris's thesis is that Lincoln was committed to a policy permitting "a large measure of self-reconstruction" by Southern whites, which would enable the seceded states to "regain all of their rights in the Union" (p. 100). This was a conservative policy, and it was implicit in the fundamental Northern war aim of preserving the Constitution and restoring the Union. For military reasons Lincoln found it necessary to emancipate slaves, a decision from which he recognized there could be no turning back. Nevertheless, Harris believes Lincoln never wavered from the fundamental policy of allowing Southern white Unionists to control their states' relationship with the freed slaves. |
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Harris's emphasis on self-reconstruction raises the question of how the freed slaves' personal liberty and civil rights were to be guaranteed. Harris says that by 1864 Lincoln had "developed considerable empathy for blacks" (p. 4). He assumed they would exercise civil rights, gradually ascending "to first-class citizenship" as white prejudice against blacks faded (p. 214). Had Lincoln lived to deal with postwar conditions, he "perhaps would have grasped the reality of the situation for the former slaves" (ibid.). Using his political skills and influence, he might have insisted that Southern Unionists protect black freedom in their states. Harris is reasonably certain that Lincoln's commitment to completing the work of emancipation would not have involved an extension of federal authority in the Southern states. |
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Harris's view of reconstruction is influenced by his judgment that in 1865 Lincoln was "the master of affairs in Washington" (p. 6). Winning reelection was a confidence builder, politically speaking. The president went through "a remarkable public transformation" and achieved eminence previously denied him as a war leader (p. 123). According to Harris, "Lincoln's apotheosis as an American icon began before his death" (p. 6). Lincoln used his political capital to make cabinet appointments aimed at unifying the Republican party, worked hard to negotiate an "early peace" in the hope that Confederates would recognize the inevitability of defeat (p. 97), and tried to get the reorganized government of Louisiana admitted to Congress. |
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