Abraham Lincoln

When Did Lincoln Become a Man of Letters?

Hal Gordon

How, then, did this barely literate country boy become the Lincoln of letters? Some of us know that Lincoln was devoted to the King James Bible and the plays of Shakespeare. But his education as a writer was broader than that. The historian Douglas L. Wilson has traced Lincoln’s progress as a writer in two excellent books, Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words.

The Gettysburg Address 150 Years Later

Hal Gordon

The words of the Gettysburg Address are so familiar to us today that it is hard to appreciate how radical they were at the time. Our country was neither “conceived in liberty” nor dedicated to “the proposition that all men are created equal.” A third or more of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had been slave owners. Nor was the Civil War being fought over the issue of human equality—at least not at first. Lincoln himself had hedged on this point. At the outset of the hostilities, he insisted that his chief aim was to preserve the union. 

The Rise and Fall of the Republican Party

Tyler Huggins

Post-Romney/Ryan defeat, Republicans ordered an autopsy report on their '12 campaign season. The report, entitled the Growth and Opportunity Project exposed several large anachronisms and rifts in the party. To quote directly from the report: "These are voters who recently left the Party [sic]. Asked to describe Republicans, they said that the Party is 'scary,' 'narrow-minded,' and 'out of touch" and that we were a Party of 'stuffy old men.' This is consistent with the findings of other post-election surveys." 

Obama’s Message of Hope and Change Resonates with Democrats Once Again

Sandip Roy

Obama is the poster boy of merit, of a man with no great political connections, no famous family name who rose from being a community organizer to president of the United States. But the true miracle of Barack Hussein Obama is that even though Tea Party types detest him, enough ordinary Americans, and not just those in that convention hall in Charlotte, seem to genuinely like the man.

 

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