Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered - Hardcover

Briggs, John Channing

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801881064 ISBN 13: 9780801881060

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Throughout the fractious years of the mid-nineteenth century, Abraham Lincoln's speeches imparted reason and guidance to a troubled nation. Lincoln's words were never universally praised. But they resonated with fellow legislators and the public, especially when he spoke on such volatile subjects as mob rule, temperance, the Mexican War, slavery and its expansion, and the justice of a war for freedom and union.

In this close examination, John Channing Briggs reveals how the process of studying, writing, and delivering speeches helped Lincoln develop the ideas with which he would so profoundly change history. Briggs follows Lincoln's thought process through a careful chronological reading of his oratory, ranging from Lincoln's 1838 speech to the Springfield Lyceum to his second inaugural address.

Recalling David Herbert Donald's celebrated revisionist essays ( Lincoln Reconsidered, 1947), Briggs's study provides students of Lincoln with new insight into his words, intentions, and image.

About this title

About the Author:

John Channing Briggs is a professor of English at the University of California, Riverside.

Review:

Remarkably, Briggs... [has] managed to find new ground to harvest.

(Harold Holzer Washington Post Book World)

Briggs interprets Lincoln's references to Providence with a subtlety and intelligence I believe to be unsurpassed in Lincoln scholarship... A model of how better to understand our country and ourselves.

(Glen E. Thurow Claremont Review of Books)

Most books about Abraham Lincoln can be taken or left alone. This book merits attention for at least two important reasons: it takes a fresh and original look at the major speeches of Abraham Lincoln, and it manages to shed new light on some of the most familiar of all American texts.

(Douglas L. Wilson, Knox College)

An invaluable contribution to the study of American political rhetoric and to Lincoln studies.

(James Engell, Chair, Department of English and American Literature and Language, Harvard University)

A masterly study of Lincoln's pre-presidential speeches that conveys the clarity, accuracy, simplicity and depth of his words. Briggs shows Lincoln with the best style of a lawyer in politics, where the means is to find the single most persuasive argument and the object is to convince and not bemuse.

(Harvey C. Mansfield, Harvard University)

Succeeds in illuminating the earlier speeches as elements in Lincoln's evolving ideology.

(Paul M. Zall Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association)

Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered does a finer job than any of the other commentaries on Lincoln's speeches, and its reading will repay richly the serious student of Lincoln and of American political ideas in general.

(Allen Carl Guelzo Indiana Magazine of History)

John Channing Briggs has thought long, hard, and well about the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, and he has produced a book that deserves to be read.

(Stewart Winger Register of the Kentucky Historical Society)

Briggs enriches our understanding of Lincoln's pre-presidential speeches.

(David Zarefsky Rhetoric Review)

A valuable intellectual history of Lincoln's speeches and developing thought on the issues of democracy, slavery, and self-government.

(Brian Dirck American Studies)

About this edition

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0801881064
• ISBN 13: 9780801881060
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384