A. Lincoln: A Biography [Hardcover]

During the last several months, I have read a number of biographies of Abraham Lincoln and recently finished two, this one and James M. McPherson's Abraham Lincoln. How different they are in terms of length as well as their scope and depth of coverage and yet they will, I am certain, attract and reward an abundance of appreciative readers. As Ronald C. White, Jr. explains in the first chapter, "He signed his name `A. Lincoln.' A visitor to Abraham Lincoln's Springfield, Illinois, home at Eighth and Jackson would find `A. Lincoln' in silvered Roman characters affixed to an octagonal blue plate on the front door. All throughout his life, people sought to complete the A - to define Lincoln, to label or libel him. Immediately after his death and continuing to the present, Americans have tried to explain the nation's most revered president. A. Lincoln continues to fascinate us because he eludes simple definitions and final judgments." Whereas McPherson's brief biography (only 65 pages plus Notes and Bibliography) captures "the essential events and meaning of Lincoln's life without oversimplification or overgeneralization," White offers 645 pages of rock-solid historical material and brilliant commentary that probably accommodate the needs and interests of most non-scholars such as I.

Of special interest to me is what White has to say about what he correctly describes as Lincoln's "journey of self-discovery to the very end of his life." When asked to provide information for a campaign biography, Lincoln responds in the third person: "A. now thinks that the agregate [sic] of all his schooling did not amount to one year. He was never in a college or Academy as a student; and never inside of a college or academy building till since he had a law-license. What he has in the way of education, he has picked up." There can be no doubt of his insatiable intellectual curiosity, his passion for learning. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, despite severely limited resources and opportunities to access them, we know that Lincoln was an avid reader and determined to become a skilled writer as well as public speaker.

Early on in Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, Fred Kaplan establishes several critically important facts about young Lincoln: he had an insatiable hunger for learning ("he read everything he could lay his hands on"), he constantly asked questions (`he had an alert interest in the world'), he was eager to be heard (being someone with a "private personality who already had a stage persona, he began to think about serious issues and connect them to his speaking and writing performances"), and like Benjamin Franklin, he was convinced that he would rise in the world (confident that `ambition and hard work would win out') despite his humble circumstances, modest resources, and dim prospects when, in 1821 at age 12, he became an avid reader of poetry. The young man was at the beginning of an extraordinary education" that would prepare him to become one of the most eloquent among history's greatest leaders. As White explains, Lincoln would look back on his part-time studies in rustic Indiana schoolhouses with a mixture of affirmation, amusement, and regret." As Lincoln once explained, "There were some schools, so called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher, beyond readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three...There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education."

Lincoln's learning skills enabled him to prepare for and then pass the bar examination in Illinois and, subsequently, to read and understand voluminous documentation when preparing for various trials. He diligently prepared for each political campaign as well as for each of the debates with Stephen Douglas. Years later, the 18th President of the United States read every book he could find about military leadership, management, and strategy so that he could prepare himself to assume (in effect) the duties of military commander of Union forces after his generals in the field (notably General George McClelland) were stricken by what he characterized as "the slows." This passion to learn what he needed to know at various times throughout his life clearly demonstrates that Lincoln was a tenacious and highly-disciplined student.

In the final chapter of his brilliant book, Ronald White observes, "One reason that we have never settled on one definition of Lincoln, and, indeed, never will, is that Lincoln never stopped asking questions of himself. Painfully aware of the shortcomings of his early education, Lincoln - whether as a schoolboy, Illinois legislator, prairie lawyer, or as president - always continued his self-study, growing in wisdom and self-knowledge with each passing year. He read, discussed, and pondered the great ideas not only of his time, but of those of the generations before him. He also thought into the future, anticipating the moral questions of subsequent generations. And Lincoln underwent a religious odyssey that deepened as he aged, inquiring about everlasting truths until his last day."

Abraham Lincoln is considered by many, including me, to be one of the greatest leaders of all time. Many biographies have been written about him, as well as many books about the American Civil war. This is the second biography of Lincoln that I have read - seven years ago I read Jan Morris's "Lincoln: A Foreigner's Quest". This (rather light-weight) book left me wanting to read more about Lincoln, but it has taken me quite a while to get around to it.

Ronald C. White Jr writes a fantastic account, not just of Lincoln's life, but there is also some fascinating examination of the words and prose of Lincoln's most famous speeches. For popular history readers, this is an easy to read book. While it has over 60 pages of references at the end, it is not too academic and is written with lightness in mind. This book should have a wide audience, even for those who are familiar with Lincoln's life and death. White does not over dramatize anything - even Lincoln's assassination which is described in just one page.

While Lincoln is remembered for preserving the Union and freeing the slaves, White also paints a picture of a man who changed his opinions as war ravaged the country and slavery became more central to victory or defeat. However, White also points out (p276) that in 1858 Lincoln stated, in a debate with his rival for the presidency Stephen Douglas, in Charleston "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people". By the end of the war he had emancipated the slaves, even though by today's standards the above statement would be regarded as an extreme form of racism.

Lincoln's speeches still resonate today, and are expertly dissected by White. In his short (10 sentences) Gettysburg address he concluded: "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth". Oh how I wish that leadership of this quality was in evidence in poor old Ireland today as we struggle with economic and political turmoil at the end of 2010.

In his inauguration speech in 1865 Lincoln is also famously quoted as saying "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations". Hugely emotive words that Ronald White describes as Lincoln asking his audience to "enter a new era, armed not with enmity but with forgiveness". While this was said after the end of the Civil War, and we are not at war in Ireland today - I think that our future leader, whoever he or she is, could do worse that read Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address and his 1865 inaugural address. For that matter, they should also read this book by Ronald White - inspiration and leadership are on every page.

This book is not only a chronology of the Great American President, it also tells us why he was great in a descriptive manner. It's like a very interesting and compelling documentary in a written form with images. The book also includes the known and relatively unknown people who surrounded A. Lincoln throughout his life - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!