Product Description

In this study, Paludan offers us Lincoln in the round - a complex, even contradictory personality who found greatness without seeking it and who felt deeply troubled about what he perceived as his failings as a President and person. Opinion has been divided about the "real" Lincoln - a conservative, a liberal, a great emancipator, a Union preservationist at all cost - but Paludan's Lincoln is both a constitutionalist and a liberal egalitarian who ultimately saw his efforts to preserve the Union and free the slaves as inseparably linked. Lincoln, Paludan contends, proved himself a truly great leader in a highly combustible situation. True, he was no saint and could rule with political expediency and a heavy hand. But no other President faced such awesome challenges, and none showed better how to meet them and move toward "a more perfect union." Offering fresh insights and interpretations, Paludan's study presents a new portrait of a President and nation at war. It aims to change the way we look as such things as Lincoln's evolving reconstruction plans, his restriction of civil liberties, and his handling of foreign affairs, and also to enlarge our understanding of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, which linked the President's personal feelings with the needs of the American nation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1781540 in Books
• Published on: 1994-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 388 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This is not a biography but a thorough and informative synthesis of much material on Lincoln's work as president. Paludan ( A People's Contest ), who teaches history at the University of Kansas, proceeds chronologically, describing, for example, how Lincoln assembled his cabinet to reflect his party's diverse elements, how he crafted his first inaugural and how Congress prepared for war by authorizing the printing of federal money in the era of state banknotes. Besides such details, Paludan also enters into historical debate: he argues that Lincoln's hands-off attitude toward administrative details strengthened him for "larger matters of grand strategy"; that his 1862 support for blacks to emigrate and form their own colony helped reduce resistance to inevitable emancipation; that his pre-Emancipation Proclamation proposal that states have 37 years to free their slaves showed commitment to "an orderly, gradual process of change." There is much to chew on in this book, as Paludan demonstrates that Lincoln's mastery of the "political-constitutional institutions of his time" served the country well.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Lincoln's presidency began long before he took the oath of office. Political turmoil in the country forced Lincoln to face the challenges of his day and to reshape the nation's government based on the fundamental principles of the Constitution. Paludan examines aspects of the executive office, giving special emphasis to the importance of Lincoln's cabinet and the Congress. The author masterfully handles overviews of the war and how Lincoln used it to preserve the union. By skillfully maneuvering the country through the Civil War, Lincoln was able to redefine the role of commander in chief by being personally involved in the day-to-day actions of the Army of the Potomac. This work is an in-depth examination of the democratic political process, the strength of the Constitution, and how the abilities of a single individual were able to preserve the Union. Recommended for public or academic libraries with large Lincoln collections.
Barbara Zaborowski, Cambria Cty. Lib., Johnstown, Pa.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
A prominent Civil War authority provides a scholarly analysis of Lincoln's administration. The author underscores the unique challenges and accomplishments of the Lincoln presidency by basing his treatise on the often overlooked or misunderstood fact that saving the Union and freeing the slaves were two issues that were inextricably linked in Lincoln's heart and mind as one singular objective. Convinced that the perpetuation of the slave system and the preservation of the Union were essentially incompatible concepts, Lincoln successfully navigated and manipulated the political-constitutional system in order to achieve his interconnected goals. Another outstanding addition to the respected American Presidents series. Recommended for larger Civil War collections and for libraries housing previous volumes in this series. Margaret Flanagan

Customer Reviews

The Finest Historical Account of Lincoln's Presidency
Like one of the previous reviewers, I too have been a previous student of Professor Paluden at the University of Kansas. I count him as one of the instructors that have fueled a passion in me to study the civil war period. Unlike the previous reviewer, I have had the benefit of having read this book before offering an opinion. Prof. Paluden offers an extremely well researched account of the civil war presidency of Lincoln. This work includes statistics and facts you simply cannot get from documentaries or other accounts. He correctly paints Lincoln as a master politician and cuts through the mythology of the man. Was Lincoln morally opposed to slavery...yes. Was he willing to run on an abolitionist platform?? Hell no, not and get elected during that time period. Paluden's real gift is painting a picture of the period and making folks realize just how important politics was in the 19th Century to all Americans (80-90% voter turnout). Unlike the previous reviewer, I have never noted the negative side of Prof. Paluden. He does have an ego, but, like has been said of his subject "no great man was ever modest". Thanks for a wonderful book professor. (Jayhawk Class of 1995).

Lincoln: The "Extraordinary Outreach of National Authority"
As the title indicates, this is not a biography of Abraham Lincoln. It is, instead, a narrow, but detailed and incisive study of Lincoln's exercise of executive power between his election in 1860 and his assassination in 1865. This is important because, as author Philip Shaw Paludan explains: "No president had larger challenges than Abraham Lincoln." And Paludan proceeds to state the obvious, that Lincoln was "responsible for two enormous accomplishments that are part of folk legend as well as fact. He saved the Union and he freed the slaves." No other president did so much in so little time, and Paludan explains why. As a result, within its limited confines, this book is excellent!

Paludan demonstrates in the chapter entitled "Assembling the Cast: Winter 1860-61," that Lincoln, as president-elect, was a shrewd politician. According to Paludan: "Lincoln could be effective only if he unified the six-year-old Republican party," so one of his first appointments was "his strongest party rival," William Seward, Senator from New York, as secretary of state. As political payback for delivering Pennsylvania to the Republicans in 1860, Lincoln was obliged to appoint the notoriously-corrupt Simon Cameron Secretary of War. To counter that stench, Lincoln named as his secretary of the navy Connecticut newspaper editor Gideon Welles, who "had a glowing reputation for honesty." Within a year, Cameron also proved to be incompetent, and, in 1862, Lincoln replaced him with Edwin Stanton, who proved to be not only a man of great integrity but a very capable manager as well. It proved to be one of the most talented cabinets in American history, although Paludan makes clear that its operations were not always harmonious, most notably during the "cabinet crisis" of December 1862.

With most of the executive departments in capable hands, Lincoln "involved himself actively in matters of strategy," claiming "'war power' authority to use his office to the limits." Lincoln's focus on military affairs was essential because the Civil War generally went badly for the Union for the first year. Paludan ably demonstrates that even while Lincoln struggled to find generals who had both the talents and temperament to be successful, the Union was "forging the resources of war," which eventually proved decisive. Gen. George McClellan was a brilliant military administrator but proved much too cautious in the field, appalled by the "mangled corpses and the poor suffering wounded. Lincoln eventually lost confidence in McClellan, and he had to be replaced. One of McClellan's eventual successors, Gen. George Meade, won the great victory at Gettysburg in July 1863, but the Union did fully gain the initiative in the field until Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who won an equally great victory at Vicksburg, Mississippi almost on the same day, was appointed general in chief in March 1864.

Lincoln's original war aim was merely to restore the Union. But the costs, human and material, of the war's first two years, made eradication of slavery a necessity. Following the battle of Antietam in September 1862, which was a "tactical draw but a strategic victory" for the Union, Lincoln announced the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The issue then became: What was to be done with the former slaves? In December, Lincoln proposed a constitutional amendment for the federal government to pay to colonize any blacks who wished to emigrate, but blacks "rejected it, abolitionists had condemned it," and this "doubtful solution" was beyond the practical realities of the time. Even while the war continued to rage, the prospective problems of reconstruction never were far from Lincoln's mind, and, according to Paludan, this difficult issue increasingly divided the president from radical Republicans.

Paludan writes that, while the radicals favored confiscation of land which had prospered from slave labor, Lincoln believed in "peaceful, gradual, compensated emancipation." Lincoln opposed the harsh remedy of confiscation and believed that the Constitution permitted him to free the slaves only "in places where war was being made." The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 potentially freed 3 million slaves but did not mention colonization or compensated emancipation. Nevertheless, the emancipation issue proved controversial. Solidly Republican New England remained largely committed to the war, but, according to Paludan: "Especially in the regions of the Middle West settled from the South and in cities where job competition existed between the races, people resented the idea of fighting in order to free blacks."

Equally controversial was the Emancipation Proclamation's "arming of black freedom fighters." According to Paludan, "Lincoln and his party clearly were committed to Union and to emancipation and to the belief that the two were linked indissolubly by the need for black soldiers." Almost 180,000 black troops were serving in Union armies by the end of the war. Lincoln was very conscious of the importance of maintaining the national moral, and, in Paludan's view, northern whites increasingly recognized the benefits of having black soldiers defend the Union.

According to Paludan, the Union's victory was in large part a result of Lincoln's "devotion to and mastery of the political-constitutional institutions of his time." Some Civil War buffs and many general readers are likely to find this book rather dry because it focuses on the science of politics. But, as Paludan writes, the preservation of the Union "was achieved chiefly through an extraordinary outreach of national authority." This book is an exceptionally thoughtful account of the exercise of executive power during the most serious crisis in American history.

masterful account of Lincoln's presidency
Any student that is interested in the Civil War or President Lincoln will enjoy this stimulating and highly readable account on a very important presidency. Phillip Shaw Paludan makes a strong case that Lincoln's two goals, saving the Union and ending slavery, were one and the same. There's a very interesting chapter on Lincoln's early reconstruction plan, the ten percent plan, that began in Louisiana in late 1863. This book is highly reccomended, whether for scholars or the general reader.