Lincoln, Statecraft, and Rhetoric

Steven Smith Fall, 2018 PLSC 318/597 M/W: 2:30-3:45

Texts:

The Writings of Abraham Lincoln (ed. Steven Smith) Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Writings (2 vols.) Allen Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader Herman Melville, Billy Bud, Bartleby and Other Stories

Other writings available online or on the course server

Requirements:

There will be three short papers (6-7 pages each) and a final exam. Attendance and participation in sections is a further requirement. Papers will be due on Fridays September 28, October 26, and December 7 at a time and place to be determined along with your TF. Each paper, the final examination, and participation in section will count for approximately 20% of the final grade.

There will be also screenings of John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln (Week 3), Edward Zwick’s Glory (Week 10), and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (Week 13).

Course Outline:

Week One: August 29

Statesmanship and Constitutional Government

Week 2: September 3

The Whig Tradition in Nineteenth Century Politics

Lincoln: To the People of Sangamon County (March, 1832); To the Editor of the Sangamon Journal (June, 1836); Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield (January, 1838); Address to the Washington Temperance Society (February, 1842).

2

Clay, “Speech on the Tariff, (1824),” Webster, “Liberty and Union Speech (January 26, 1830),” [both on the Online Library of Liberty], Calhoun, “Fort Hill Address” (1831).

Week 3: September 10

The Sectional Crisis and the Slavery Question

Lincoln: To Williamson Durley (October, 1845), Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity (July, 1846); “Spot” Resolutions in the U.S. House of Representatives (December, 1847); Speech on the War with Mexico (January, 1848); Notes on the Practice of Law (1850?); Eulogy on Henry Clay (July, 1852); Fragment on Slavery (1854?); Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act (October, 1854); Letter to George Robertson (August, 1855); Letter to Joshua Speed (August, 1855).

Week 4: September 17

The Abolitionist Debate

William Lloyd Garrison, “Address to the American Colonization Society,” “Declaration of the National Antislavery Convention,” and “No Compromise with Slavery”; David Walker, “An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World”; Wendell Phillips, “The Constitution, a Pro-Slavery Compact”; R. W. Emerson, “The Fugitive Slave Law” [Online Library of Liberty]; H. D. Thoreau, “On Captain John Brown” [online]; Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’

Herman Melville, Benito Cereno

Week 5: September 24

Lincoln and the “House Divided”

Lincoln: On Sectionalism (July, 1856), Speech at Kalamazoo (August, 1856), On Stephen Douglas (December, 1856), Speech at Republican Banquet in Chicago (December, 1856), Fragment on Republican Party (February, 1857), Speech on the Dred Scott Decision (June, 1857), Fragment of a Speech (May, 1858); House Divided Speech (June, 1858), Speech at Chicago (July, 1858) On Slavery and Democracy (1858), Letter to Oliver P. Hall (February, 1860).

Seward, “Irrepressible Conflict Speech” [New York History Net]; Taney, “Opinion on Dred Scott”

3

Week 6: October 1

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Lincoln: First Debate with Douglas (August, 1858), Speech at Edwardsville (September, 1858); On Pro-Slavery Theology (1858), Seventh Debate (October, 1858, Speech at Chicago (March, 1859), Letter to Henry L. Pierce and others (April, 1859), Letter to Theodore Canisius (May, 1859).

Week 7: October 8

Progress, History, and the Promise of America

Lincoln: Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions (February 1859), Speech at Columbus (September, 1859); Speech at Cincinnati (September 17, 1859), Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (September, 1859), Letter to Jesse Fell (December, 1859).

Bancroft, “The Necessity, Reality, and Promise of the Progress of the Human Race,” Emerson, “Wealth,” Fitzhugh, selections from Sociology for the South and Cannibals All; Hammond, “Mudsill Speech,”

Week 8: October 15

Lincoln in New York

Address to Cooper Union (February, 1860), Speech at New Haven (March, 1860), Autobiography written for campaign (June, 1860), Letter to Alexander Stephens (December, 1860) Fragment on the Constitution (January, 1861), Farewell Address at Springfield (February, 1861).

Week 9: October 22

The Secession Crisis: The Case For and Against the South

Lincoln: Speech to Germans at Cincinnati (February, 1861), Speech at Independence Hall (February, 1861); First Inaugural Address (March, 1861), Letter to William H. Seward (April, 1861); Proclamation Calling Militia and Convening Congress (April, 1861); Message to Congress in Special Session (July, 1861); Letters to Beriah Magoffin, John C. Frémont, and Orville Browning (August, September, 1861).

Stephens, “Cornerstone Address”

4

Week 10: October 29

Statesmanship in Wartime

Lincoln: Letters to George B. McClellan (April, July, 1862); Appeal to Border State Representatives (July, 1862); Address on Colonization (August 14, 1862), To De Gasparin (August, 1862), Letter to Horace Greeley (August, 1862); Proclamation Suspending Writ of Habeas Corpus (September, 1862), Letters to George B. McClellan (October, 1862); Letter to Carl Schurz (November, 1862), Letter to Nathaniel P. Banks (November, 1862); Annual Message to Congress (December, 1862); To the Working Men of Manchester (January, 1863), Letter to Joseph Hooker (January, 1863); Letter to Erastus Corning (June, 1863), Letter to Matthew Bichard (June, 1863).

Week 11: November 5

Lincoln and Emancipation

Lincoln: Message to Congress (March, 1862) [online], Reply to Chicago Emancipation Memorial (September, 1862), Final Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) Resolution on Slavery (April, 1863), Letters to George Meade and James Hackett (July- August, 1863), Letter to James C. Conkling (August, 1863), Letter to Salmon P. Chase (September, 1863), Gettysburg Address (November, 1863), Letters to Everett Edward, Albert G. Hodges, and Mrs. Horace Mann (November-April, 1863-64), Address at Sanitary Fair (August, 1864).

Emerson, “Emancipation Proclamation,”[online] Karl Marx, Letter to Abraham Lincoln [online], J.S. Mill “The Contest in America” [Online Library of Liberty], Frederick Douglass, “Response to the Emancipation Proclamation” [Online]

Week 12: November 12

The God of Abraham

Lincoln: Meditation on the Divine Will (September, 1862), Speech to the 166th Ohio Regiment (August, 1864); Memorandum on Probable Failure of Re-election (August, 1864), Letter to Eliza Gurney (September, 1864), Letter to William T. Sherman (September, 1864), Proclamation of Thanksgiving (October, 1864), Letter to Mrs. Lydia Bixby (November, 1864), To a Southern Woman (December, 1864), Letters to Sherman and Grant (December, 1864/January, 1865), Second Inaugural Address (March, 1865); Letter to Thurlow Weed (March, 1865); Response to Serenade (April, 1865), Speech on Reconstruction (April, 1865).

Week 13: November 26 5

The Lincoln Legacy

Walt Whitman, “ O Captain, My Captain,” “Democratic Vistas,” (selections) Frederick Douglass, “Oration on the Unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument” Theodore Roosevelt, “The Heirs of Abraham Lincoln” Woodrow Wilson, “Abraham Lincoln – A Man of the People” Barack Obama “Announcement for President” (February 10, 2007); “What I see in Lincoln’s Eyes,” Time (June 26, 2005).

Week 14: December 3

The Lincoln Challenge

Additional Readings

For those interested in even more Lincoln, Roy Basler’s 8 volume The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln is indispensable. Below is listed a very partial bibliography of works on Lincoln and his era.

Belz, Herman: Reconstructing the Union: Theory and Policy During the Civil War Burt, John: Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism Cox, La Wanda: Lincoln and Black Freedom Donald, David: Lincoln Reconsidered Douglass, Frederick: Life and Times Fehrenbacher, Don E.: The Dred Scott Case _____, Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s Foner, Eric: Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men _____, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery Forgie, George: Patricide in the House Divide: A Psychological Study of Lincoln and his Age Greenstone, J. David: The Lincoln Persuasion: Rethinking American Liberalism Allen Guelzo: Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President _____, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America Herndon, William: Life of Lincoln Howe, Daniel Walker, The Political Culture of the American Whigs Jaffa, Harry V.: Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate Macpherson, James: Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution Neely, Mark: The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties Paludan, Philip Shawn, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln 6

Potter, David: The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 _____, Lincoln and his Party in the Secession Crisis Williams, Harry T.: Lincoln and his Generals Wills Garry: Lincoln at Gettysburg Wilson, Edmund O.: Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War