Lincoln in Personal: What His Most Private Reflections Inform Us About Our Biggest President

“A captivating tour contained in the thoughts—and the center—of Abraham Lincoln . . . An necessary and timeless work.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–successful creator of His Fact Is Marching On
 
From the New York Occasions bestselling creator of A. Lincoln and American Ulysses, a revelatory glimpse into the mental journey of our sixteenth president by his non-public notes to himself, explored collectively right here for the primary time

A deeply non-public man, shut off even to those that labored carefully with him, Abraham Lincoln usually captured “his finest ideas,” as he known as them, briefly notes to himself. He would work out his private stances on the most important problems with the day, by no means anticipating anybody to see these frank, unpolished items of writing, which he’d then preserve shut at hand, in desk drawers and even in his high hat. The profound significance of those notes has been missed, as a result of the originals are scattered throughout a number of completely different archives and have by no means earlier than been introduced collectively and examined as a coherent entire.

Now, famend Lincoln historian Ronald C. White walks readers by twelve of Lincoln’s most necessary non-public notes, showcasing our biggest president’s brilliance and empathy, but in addition his very human anxieties and ambitions. We glance over Lincoln’s shoulder as he grapples with the issue of slavery, searching for convincing rebuttals to those that supported the evil establishment (“As I’d not be a slave, so I’d not be a grasp. This expresses my thought of democracy.”); prepares for his historic debates with Stephen Douglas; expresses his non-public emotions after a defeated bid for a Senate seat (“With me, the race of ambition has been a failure—a flat failure”); voices his issues concerning the new Republican Celebration’s long-term prospects; develops an argument for nationwide unity amidst a secession disaster that will in the end rend the nation in two; and, for a president many have seen as not spiritual, develops a complicated theological reflection within the midst of the Civil Struggle (“it’s fairly potential that God’s function is one thing completely different from the aim of both social gathering”). Moreover, in a historic first, all 111 Lincoln notes are transcribed within the appendix, a present to students and Lincoln buffs alike.

These are notes Lincoln by no means anticipated anybody to learn, put into context by a author who has spent his profession finding out Lincoln’s life and phrases. The result’s a uncommon glimpse into the thoughts and soul of one in all our nation’s most necessary figures.