Person

Abraham Lincoln

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This Guilty Land: Every Possible Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is widely revered, while many Americans consider John Brown mad. Yet it was Brown’s strategy that brought slavery to an end.
Graffiti on a wall spelling "vote"
partner

Refusing to Accept the Results of a Presidential Election Triggered the Civil War

The danger of President Trump's rhetoric.
Abraham Lincoln

Why We Keep Reinventing Abraham Lincoln

Revisionist biographers have given us countless perspectives, from Honest Abe to Killer Lincoln. Is there a version that’s true to his time and attuned to ours?
Ramón Castilla

Emancipation in War: The United States and Peru

A comparative look at the U.S. and Peru's emancipation proclamations' nuances in declaring the freedom of enslaved peoples.
A political cartoon depicting Abraham Lincoln animalistically, playing cards on top of a keg of gunpowder.

The 1619 Project and the ‘Anti-Lincoln Tradition’

The Great Emancipator's character and anti-slavery legacy has been questioned by Black Americans for over a century.

Lincoln’s Forgotten Legacy as America’s First ‘Green President’

Lincoln protected thousands of acres of California forest and wanted to restore the nation’s battle-ravaged countryside before he was assassinated.

Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden, and the Politics of Touch

A history of tactile politics.
Lincoln portrait superimposed on rainbow flag

So What if Lincoln Was Gay?

Reflections from the author of a novel that does not shy away from the question of Lincoln's sexuality.
Abraham Lincoln visiting soldiers encamped at the Civil War battlefield of Antietam in October, 1982.

Abraham Lincoln’s Foreign Policy Helped Win the Civil War

Why Lincoln’s "one war at a time" doctrine saved the Union.

Abraham Lincoln's Secret Visits to Slaves

Former slaves claimed the president came to plantations disguised as a beggar or a peddler, telling them they’d soon be free. 

Lincoln: The Great Uncompromiser

He fought to remake the center—not yield to it.
Abraham Lincoln and John C. Calhoun

The Great Lengths Taken to Make Abraham Lincoln Look Good in Portraits

One famous image of the president features a body that isn't his.

The Making of an Antislavery President

Fred Kaplan's new book asks why it took Abraham Lincoln so long to embrace emancipation.

Looking Back to Lincoln

During the Great Depression, Americans found solace in history.

Did Abraham Lincoln’s Bromance Alter the Course of American History?

Joshua Speed found his BFF in Abraham Lincoln.

A Topic Best Avoided

After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln faced the issue of sorting out a nation divided over the issue of freed slaves. But what were his views on it?
Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's Great Depression

Abraham Lincoln fought clinical depression all his life. But what would today be treated as a "character issue" gave Lincoln the tools to save the nation.
Lincoln giving Gettysburg Address.

The Gettysburg Address

In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most famous speeches in U.S. history.
A photograph of Frederick Douglass imposed on the cover of The Columbian Orator by Caleb Bingham.

The Columbian Orator Taught Nineteenth-Century Americans How to Speak

For strivers like Lincoln, guides to rhetoric had a special currency in the nineteenth century.
Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's Duel

In the summer of 1842, young Abraham Lincoln’s razor-sharp wit almost got him into a whole heap of trouble.