Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America - Softcover

McGinty, Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1631491474 ISBN 13: 9781631491474

Publisher: Liveright, 2016

Synopsis

The untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight.

In May of 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge, unalterably changing the course of American transportation history. Within a year, long-simmering tensions between powerful steamboat interests and burgeoning railroads exploded, and the nation’s attention, absorbed by the Dred Scott case, was riveted by a new civil trial. Dramatically reenacting the Effie Afton case―from its unlikely inception, complete with a young Abraham Lincoln’s soaring oratory, to the controversial finale―this “masterful” (Christian Science Monitor) account gives us the previously untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight. 18 illustrations

About this title

About the Author:

Brian McGinty is an attorney and writer who specializes in American history and law. His previous books include Lincoln's Greatest Case, The Body of John Merryman: Abraham Lincoln and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus, and John Brown's Trial. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Review:

“McGinty provides valuable context unavailable anywhere else and a deep understanding of the dynamic and contested legal, commercial, and political world that informed Lincoln’s support for westward expansion and economic development, shaped his ideas on law, and honed his skills as a lawyer. McGinty’s book gives us the best accounting of Lincoln, the lawyer, to date. Highly recommended.”
- Randall M. Miller, Library Journal (Starred Review)

“A masterful popular history that places its focal point in a richly detailed wider context and will get readers interested in Lincoln’s legal career.”
- Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“The definitive account. . . . Deftly explains the judicial and political implications of this effort by Lincoln to establish the inevitability (and desirability) of economic development in the West, and does so through superior research, fine reasoning, and lucid prose. . . .  Absolutely essential.”
- Harold Holzer, Roger Hertog Fellow, New-York Historical Society

“Highly readable. . . . Places the story within the larger context of American economic, social, and military history.”
- Michael Burlingame, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“A lively account of this navigational dispute and its central role in America’s economic and political development.”
- Margaret A. Little, Wall Street Journal

“Sometimes, while the future seems to lie in the establishment of invisible connections, it can be rewarding to look to the past, when it was infrastructure that held the promise of unity. McGinty enlivens this history of pre-Civil War America.”
- Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune

About this edition

• Publisher: Liveright
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1631491474
• ISBN 13: 9781631491474
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288