One of our most eminent Lincoln scholars, winner of a Lincoln Prize
for his "Lincoln at Cooper Union, " examines the four months
between Lincoln's election and inauguration, when the
president-elect made the most important decision of his coming
presidency -- there would be no compromise on slavery or secession
of the slaveholding states, even at the cost of civil war.
Abraham Lincoln first demonstrated his determination and
leadership in the Great Secession Winter -- the four months between
his election in November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861 --
when he rejected compromises urged on him by Republicans and
Democrats, Northerners and Southerners, that might have preserved
the Union a little longer but would have enshrined slavery for
generations. Though Lincoln has been criticized by many historians
for failing to appreciate the severity of the secession crisis that
greeted his victory, Harold Holzer shows that the presidentelect
waged a shrewd and complex campaign to prevent the expansion of
slavery while vainly trying to limit secession to a few Deep South
states.
During this most dangerous White House transition in American
history, the country had two presidents: one powerless (the
president-elect, possessing no constitutional authority), the other
paralyzed (the incumbent who refused to act). Through limited,
brilliantly timed and crafted public statements, determined private
letters, tough political pressure, and personal persuasion, Lincoln
guaranteed the integrity of the American political process of
majority rule, sounded the death knell of slavery, and transformed
not only his own image but that of the presidency, even while
making inevitable the war that would be necessary to make these
achievements permanent.
"Lincoln President-Elect" is the first book to concentrate on
Lincoln's public stance and private agony during these months and
on the momentous consequences when he first demonstrated his
determination and leadership. Holzer recasts Lincoln from an
isolated prairie politician yet to establish his greatness, to a
skillful shaper of men and opinion and an immovable friend of
freedom at a decisive moment when allegiance to the founding credo
"all men are created equal" might well have been sacrificed.
General
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