Episode 1: Abraham Lincoln

Show Notes

Description

Today’s episode is all about Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, a man whose story is at the center of the defining moment in American history. President during the Civil War, Lincoln saved the union and freed enslaved Americans, and thus casts a mighty long shadow over anyone who held office since. Every President since, historians say, has had to “get right with Lincoln.” But perhaps his story is more complex, as we will learn today.

Here’s a quick refresher on Lincoln. Born in Kentucky in 1809, he grew up in Illinois, taught himself to read and write, became a lawyer, and served a brief stint as a Congressman. While initially a member of the Whig Party, he joined the new Republican Party and gained national acclaim in 1858 for his epic debates against Stephen Douglas as both competed for Illinois’ Senate seat. A dark horse candidate, Lincoln won the presidency in the 1860 election, even without appearing on any presidential ballot throughout the slave-holding South. Opposed to any future expansion of slavery, his election helped instigate the Civil War. 

The war dominated his presidency, and with it the question of slavery. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862 and eventually promoted the 13th amendment to end slavery nationally. He overwhelming won reelection, thanks in large part to the soldiers’ vote, and his Second Inaugural stands alongside his Gettysburg Address as arguably the two greatest examples of American oratory, ever. 

“With malice toward none,” he proclaimed in early March of 1865, “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 a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

He died mere weeks later, only days after the guns of war fell silent, when felled by an assassin’s bullet. Abraham Lincoln thus became in many ways the Civil War’s last martyr, an American icon of moral strength, and also a global symbol for humanity’s inexhaustible quest for freedom. 

But….if that is his legacy….is it accurate? History has a way of rounding out the rough edges of our icons, leaving a useful image for our own times, but at times an inaccurate portrait of the man or woman as they really were. What then, should be Lincoln’s legacy? More accurately, how do historians remember him? To help answer that question and discuss Lincoln’s legacy more broadly, we spoke to two esteemed Lincoln scholars. 

Further Reading

Books:

• Lerone Bennett Jr., Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (Johnson Publishing Company, 2000)

• David Blight, Race and Reunion (Harvard University Press, 2002)

• Andrew Buni, Robert L. Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier: Politics and Black Journalism (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974)

• Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (W.W. Norton & Company, 2010)

• Henry Louis Gates, Lincoln on Race and Slavery (Princeton University Press, 2011)

• Edna Greene Medford, Lincoln and Emancipation (Southern Illinois University Press, 2015)

Primary Resources

• Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass Primary Resources (Digital Public Library of America)

• Emancipation Proclamation (Abraham Lincoln, National Archives,1863)

• Frederick Douglass’ Speech at the Unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, DC. (Frederick Douglass, Digital Public Library of America, 1876)

• House Divided Speech (Abraham Lincoln, National Parks Services, 1858)

• Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Alexander Stephens (Abraham Lincoln, University of Georgia Special Collections and Libraries, 1865)

• Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address (Abraham Lincoln, National Parks Service, 1865)

• Notable quotes from Abraham Lincoln on slavery

• 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (National Archives, 1865-1870)

Other Resources

• Abraham Lincoln Museums - An Overview (Jay Wertz, HistoryNet)

• Abraham Lincoln's Presidential Library

• "Eric Foner: Colbert and the Daily Show 'An Opportunity Not to be Missed" (Eric Foner, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences: History News Network)

• Ford’s Theatre - Digital Exhibits on Lincoln’s Assassination and Legacy

• Lincoln’s Home (National Park Service)

• Newspaper of Record (Documentary, Directed by Kenneth Love and Written by Bill Doorley, 2009)

• Presidential Historians Survey (C-SPAN. 2017)

• Purpose of the Lincoln Memorial (National Parks Service)

Guests

Edna Greene Medford, PhD

Assistant Provost, Professor in the Department of History in the College of Arts and Sciences, and former chair of the Department of History | Howard University

Specializing in nineteenth-century African-American history, Dr. Medford teaches courses in the Jacksonian Era, Civil War and Reconstruction, and African-American History to 1877. Dr. Medford was educated at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia, the University of Illinois (Urbana), and the University of Maryland (College Park), where she received her Ph.D. in United States history.

Dr. Medford has served as the Director for History of New York’s African Burial Ground Project and edited the volume Historical Perspectives of the African Burial Ground: New York Blacks and the Diaspora (volume 3 of the series, The New York African Burial Ground: Unearthing the African Presence in Colonial New York). She has published numerous articles and book chapters on African Americans, especially during the era of the Civil War.

Her books include Lincoln and Emancipation (2015) as well as co-authored books The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views. She compiled and wrote the introductions to the edited two-volume work The Price of Freedom: Slavery and the Civil War - Volume I, and The Price of Freedom: Slavery and the Civil War - Volume II.

Dr. Medford is the 2009 special bicentennial recipient of the Order of Lincoln, an award given by the state of Illinois, for her scholarship on the president. She lectures widely to scholarly and community-based groups and has presented to national and international audiences on topics that range from Alexis de Tocqueville’s influence on American politics to community-building among American free blacks in Civil War-era Canada, to African American responses to Abraham Lincoln’s wartime policies. Currently, Dr. Medford is a Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lectureship Program.

Dr. Medford’s website.

Eric Foner, PhD

DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History | Columbia University

Dr. Foner is one of this country's most prominent historians. He received his doctoral degree at Columbia under the supervision of Richard Hofstadter. He is one of only two persons to serve as president of the three major professional organizations: the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians, and one of a handful to have won the Bancroft and Pulitzer Prizes in the same year.

Professor Foner's publications have concentrated on the intersections of intellectual, political and social history, and the history of American race relations. His best-known books are: Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (1970; reissued with new preface 1995) Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (1976); Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983); Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988) (winner, among other awards, of the Bancroft Prize, Parkman Prize, and Los Angeles Times Book Award);  The Story of American Freedom (1998); Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (2002); his survey textbook of American history, Give Me Liberty! An American History (2004); The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) (winner, among other awards, of the Bancroft Prize, Pulitzer Prize for History, and The Lincoln Prize); and Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, (2015) (winner of the American History Book Prize by the New-York Historical Society. His latest book is The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019). His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Eric Foner has also been the co-curator, with Olivia Mahoney, of two prize-winning exhibitions on American history: A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln, which opened at the Chicago Historical Society in 1990, and America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War, which opened at the Virginia Historical Society in 1995 and traveled to several other locations. For links to digital versions of these exhibits, see the bottom of this page. He also revised the presentation of American history at the Hall of Presidents at Disney World, and Meet Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland, and has served as consultant to several National Parks Service historical sites and historical museums.

Eric Foner is a winner of the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates (1991), and the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching from Columbia University (2006). He was named Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities in 1995. In 2006, he received the Kidger Award for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship from the New England History Teachers Association. In 2014 he was awarded the Gold Medal by the National Institute of Social Sciences. In 2020 he received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement (the award honors literature that confronts racism and explores diversity), and the Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award from the Organization of American Historians. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science. He has been awarded honorary degrees by Iona College, Queen Mary University of London, the State University of New York, Dartmouth College, Lehigh University, and Princeton University. He has taught at Cambridge University as Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions, Oxford University as Harmsworth Professor of American History, Moscow State University as Fulbright Professor, and at Queen Mary, University of London as Leverhulme Visiting Scholar.

Dr. Foner’s website.

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In this episode, we spoke with historians Edna Greene Medford and Eric Foner about Abraham Lincoln and his colossal importance in any discussion of race, citizenship, and the presidency. Our conversations with our guests illuminated Lincoln's complicated and evolving legacy.

We've provided an episode transcript, primary and secondary sources, and other materials for those who want to dive deeper into the story of Abraham Lincoln and race.