Shortly before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared slaves free in the secessionist states, Abraham Lincoln gave assurances to the border states of an all-white society to come, whereby freed slaves would be shipped to South American colonies. Nevertheless, argues Neely in this succinct, brisk political biography, Lincoln generally took a determined moral stance against slavery, which he regarded as an evil. Winner of a Pulitzer for The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties, Neely here disputes critics who charge that Lincoln's security measures during the Civil War amounted to a dictatorship, even though, as he graphically acknowledges, tens of thousands of civilians were arrested and civil liberties were drastically curtailed. As commander-in-chief, opines Neely, Lincoln had no equal in American history in combining political vision with military strategy. Nearly 100 plates reproduce documents, posters, cartoons, letters, broadsides, and rare photographs.
- Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
