Product Description

William Lee Miller’s ethical biography is a fresh, engaging telling of the story of Lincoln’s rise to power. Through careful scrutiny of Lincoln’s actions, speeches, and writings, and of accounts from those who knew him, Miller gives us insight into the moral development of a great politician — one who made the choice to go into politics, and ultimately realized that vocation’s fullest moral possibilities.

As Lincoln’s Virtues makes refreshingly clear, Lincoln was not born with his face on Mount Rushmore; he was an actual human being making choices — moral choices — in a real world. In an account animated by wit and humor, Miller follows this unschooled frontier politician’s rise, showing that the higher he went and the greater his power, the worthier his conduct would become. He would become that rare bird, a great man who was also a good man. Uniquely revealing of its subject’s heart and mind, it represents a major contribution to our understanding and of Lincoln, and to the perennial American discussion of the relationship between politics and morality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #372847 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-04
• Released on: 2003-02-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

From Amazon.com
William Lee Miller's Lincoln's Virtues is less an "event" chronology than the tracing of the moral and ethical core of Abraham Lincoln's beliefs, what Miller calls the man's "unintended preparation for greatness." Miller posits that Lincoln rightly deserves his nonpareil place in American history. But, he continues, Lincoln's greatness is best appreciated only when we realize he was merely mortal and therefore free to follow any number of courses of actions. Miller, through scores of eloquent exegeses of Lincoln's writings and speeches, explores the path--consistent, though evolving--this free agent took. Lincoln chose politics as his work. As a politician he was subject to the very real constraints of collective action. However, such was the man's "moral self-confidence," that the mantle of greatness alit on his shoulders alone. This is a revealing, delicate, and at times soaring work. It also presupposes its readers are much more than casually familiar with Lincoln's life and times. - -H. O'Billovitch

From Publishers Weekly
In a narrative that positions a careful analysis of Lincoln's life against his popular legend and "ritual celebration," University of Virginia historian Miller (Arguing About Slavery) provides an incisive and shrewd discussion of Lincoln's development as a person and a politician. If it is assumed from the outset that Lincoln was "a spectacularly wonderful man," Miller argues, it "may diminish our appreciation of the ways in which he may actually have become one." Thus Miller's project to chronicle man rather than myth is explicitly concerned with the evolution of Lincoln's character, motivations and ideals. Chronicling his rise from an Appalachian boyhood to the corridors of power, the author makes a host of wise observations about this "ungainly westerner" that are informed as much by Miller's considerable knowledge of human nature as by his study of Lincoln's utterances over the years. According to Miller, Lincoln's life was motivated by the desire to distance himself from his humble origins; though he may have begun as a young man of the people, he quickly sought a place among the intellectual and cultural elite that Thomas Jefferson had dubbed the "natural aristocracy." He never introduced his sons to his father and stepmother. He harbored an intense dislike for all forms of menial labor, and was displeased when campaign posters positioned him as a rail-splitter. In this same spirit, he despised the simple, petty bigotries common among the working classes of his day and eschewed the Know-Nothingism popular in the United States of the 1850s as being beneath him. It is this Lincoln's studied and cultivated aloofness from the banal Miller argues, that positioned him for greatness. (Jan. 22) Forecast: This brings a fresh and refreshing perspective that Lincoln devotees will appreciate.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Miller (Arguing About Slavery) recasts Lincoln's life as a lesson in political morality. Less biography than an extended essay on the process whereby Lincoln learned to think and act in moral terms, Miller's wide-ranging probe of the sources of Lincoln's thought and the character of his action on such topics as slavery, secession, party politics, family, and community explores what being a public man meant, up to the moment of Lincoln's inauguration as President. In Miller's hands, Lincoln emerges as a purposeful learner and thinker whose moral and political compass came from Scripture, Shakespeare, the law, and "the people," to whom he listened but never pandered. Miller's great contribution is showing that Lincoln's call to public service demanded an ethical stance and that he owed his success to his moral clarity on the issues of the day. Though readers will chafe at Miller's sometimes too precious arguments, obscure asides, and unabashed admiration of Lincoln, they will appreciate his insistence that politics must be a noble calling, as Lincoln would (and did) have it. Recommended for large public and academic libraries. Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Great and Kind Human
This is a very unique biography of Abraham Lincoln. As described in all the other reviews, this book focuses on Lincoln's ethical character. After reading this book, the reader should feel like we have so much more to give to this world that we live in. We should continue to develop ourselves so we can contribute to make this world a better place. Lincoln believed he could do that by proving to the rest of the world that democracy can survive and prosper. Everyone knows Lincoln was a kind and humble man. But the author not only describes Lincoln's ethical nature but provides many examples that proves to us time and time again what a wondersful exceptional man Abraham Lincoln really was. Everyone living in a free country should thank Abraham Lincoln for his ethical dedication.

Lincoln: From the Inside Out
In pursuit of a literary project concerning Lincoln myself, this was the book I found most useful - after plowing through many recitations of external events.

Mr. Miller has done an exceptional job in showing the landscape of Lincoln's thinking: where it started, how it changed - and stays eminently fair-minded throughout.

Plus this book is something of a revelation in non-fictional literary style: conversational in places. But, in other places, conceptually very dense. And a great sense of humor.

Highly recommended.

Long-winded is an Understatement!
Okay, I admit it: I am a fan of Lincoln's. I was disposed to like this book. It's really not a BAD book, for it's very well researched, and Miller does know his subject well. However, his prose style is musty, circumlocutious, windy in the extreme, and almost deaf to any coherent narrative of Lincoln's life. The perspective on "virtue"--a subject I find fascintating--is also strained to the maximum. In all due respect, this author has been speaking to star-struck undergrads for a bit too long. A good editor might have saved all this research; as it is, it's a longish, flawed book on a great subject.