Lincoln

Lincoln. By David Herbert Donald. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Pp. 714).

The American Civil War has spawned hundreds of biographies of key individuals involved in the conflict. Scholars have studied political leaders, generals, military officers, common soldiers and civilians who participated. Out of all these personalities, President Abraham Lincoln remains one of the most popular subjects and has inspired scores of books and articles about his life and presidency. In Lincoln, David Herbert Donald adds a very worthy work to this list covering the life of Lincoln from his early American ancestors to his death in Ford’s Theater. Avoiding one underlying thesis, Donald tries to narrate the life of Lincoln from the president’s own perspective focusing upon his ambition, fatalism, and hard work ethic that enabled him to lead a nation through the fires of civil war.

According to Donald’s portrayal, Lincoln had a driving ambition and self-confidence to match that motivated him to seek advancement and prestige. Unsatisfied with the farmer’s life that his father lived, Lincoln looked for ways to rise above his humble origins. Politics and the law suited Lincoln more than any other trade or profession. As a young man, he served in the state legislature of Illinois and started practicing law. Although he lost several elections, Lincoln managed to build considerable influence in politics and became a rising star in the new Republican Party during the late 1850’s. Along with his political career, he built a thriving law career that made himself and his family comfortable if not exceedingly wealthy. His election as president in 1860 capped a remarkable career but he faced a great challenge in trying to hold the nation together. Although he possessed ambition and confidence in abundant qualities, he did not suffer from a huge ego which enabled him to handle many difficult personalities as president such as George McClellan, William Seward, and Charles Sumner.

Donald believed that passivity was one of Lincoln’s most interesting traits. Although he had the ability to inspire people, he did not work by crafting visionary polices or forming grand designs. He often reacted to the situations created by other people and events. If Lincoln implemented something that did not work, he merely changed course until he found something that met the needs of the particular situation. Lincoln infuriated critics who claimed he had no polices and offered no direction but the flexibility engendered by his passivity did not wed him to any one policy and allowed him to navigate the chaos of civil war. In Lincoln’s case, passivity did not equate with weakness, but allowed him to be extremely logical and practical. One example was his selection of generals. When a general such as McClellan failed to win victories, Lincoln merely picked another until he found ones that could defeat the Confederacy. Donald does not gloss over any of Lincoln’s failings. Such passivity meant that his administration operated inefficiently and at times Lincoln failed to offer the strong leadership required by a particular situation. During the Fort Sumter crisis, Lincoln vacillated between supplying and evacuating the fort and bungled the resupply missions when they were dispatched. In addition, Donald criticized him for not offering a stronger mode of leadership during this time although little chance existed of Lincoln avoiding war.

Lincoln’s handling of the emancipation proclamation required his political skills and the flexibility of his passivity. Possessing strong anti-slavery feelings, Lincoln initially opposed general emancipation at the start of the war because he doubted the federal government possessed the constitutional authority to free the slaves and he did not want to alienate the loyal slave states. As the war progressed, fugitive slaves flooded Union lines and radical abolitionists pressed Lincoln to free them. On the other hand, most Northerners had racist views and feared the social consequences of freeing nearly four million blacks. By the summer of 1862, Lincoln had decided that the best war policy to undermine the Confederate war effort and bolster the Union cause was to free the slaves. He adroitly prepared the people of the North for the announcement but had to wait for a Union victory in order to avoid appearances of desperation. After Antietam, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which freed the black people in the Confederate states. Always the politician, he avoided emancipation in the loyal border states but pressed them to adopt emancipation policies of their own.

Donald admits in the preface that he believes Lincoln to be the greatest president yet he avoids hero-worship and offers a pretty fair critique of Lincoln as a person and as president. Based mainly upon Lincoln’s papers and official records, the book offers a well-balanced biography of Lincoln that avoids the excessive detail of multi-volume works but offers more substance than shorter biographies.

Johnny Spence Texas Christian University

David Herbert Donald seeks to explain rather than judge in his biography of Abraham Lincoln, simply titled Lincoln. Donald contends that this biography is written from Lincoln’s point of view through using the information and ideas that were available to him. In tracing Lincoln’s life Donald asked himself “at every stage of his career what he knew when he had to take critical actions, how he evaluated the evidence before him, and why he reached his decisions.” (13) With this Donald avoids the mistake of many historians in using hindsight to judge their subject. Donald bases this work on the words of Abraham Lincoln in letters and messages and even conversations recorded by witnesses.

Donald pays a great amount of attention to Lincoln’s “unquenchable ambition,” his labor in his law practice, to his turbulent marriage, and his repeated defeats. He highlights the essential passivity of Lincoln’s nature as a basic trait of his character. He argues that some of Lincoln’s most lovable traits, such as his compassion, tolerance, and willingness to overlook mistakes came from his fatalism.

This biography is a chronological account of Lincoln’s life beginning with his birth in Kentucky, his frontier youth, his notable Illinois legal career, to his prominence in politics, both in Illinois and Washington, and then his presidency. Such attention to the development of Lincoln’s life allows Donald to show how Lincoln constantly pursued self-improvement and sought a life better than that of his father’s. With this Donald emphasizes Lincoln’s capacity for growth.

Lincoln was a fatalistic man who sensed his destiny was directed by some higher power. Turning away from orthodox Christianity because of emotional excesses of frontier evangelicalism, he accepted instead the Doctrine of Necessity which he defined as the belief “that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control.” (15) Lincoln’s fatalism created a more practical approach to problem solving whereas if one solution did not work, another could be tried. Lincoln’s attitude that his “policy is to have not policy” became a sort of motto for him. (15) This motto infuriated those people around him who also believed that he had no principles.

During his administration Donald argues that Lincoln’s primary concern was the preservation of the Union and that he never sought the political and social equality of blacks and whites in the country. Lincoln remained reluctant to offer unqualified freedom to the slaves just shortly before he announced that “all persons held as slaves” within any state or part of a state in rebellion would be “then, thenceforward, and forever free” on January 1, 1863. Instead, he saw in colonization a rational way to deal with the institution of slavery and even favored compensated emancipation. His policy of having no policy helped him to adapt to each situation and he preferred to react to the decisions of others rather than to take the initiative himself. During his presidency he often made important decisions without the aid of his cabinet. The Abraham Lincoln who emerges from this book is a man who yearned for distinction and hoped to do something to improve his country. He possessed an ego which was usually masked under an appearance of humility.

David Herbert Donald has created a fascinating account of the life of Abraham Lincoln. Using the president’s own words to examine his life creates a better understanding of the man behind the decisions and even allows the explanation by Lincoln through his own words. Donald sheds light not just on the political doings of Abraham Lincoln but looks at the personality behind the politician. In this it lends to a greater understanding of President Abraham Lincoln.

David Herbert Donald, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, is the author of one of the more recent biographies of the sixteenth president of the United States. Simply title Lincoln, the book met with great success following its publication in 1995. First winning the prestigious Lincoln Prize, the biography remained on the New York Times bestseller list for fourteen weeks. Clearly, this work is assessable to the general public and yet valuable for an academic audience. Perhaps Donald’s past achievements with biographies explain the success of his recent study. Two of the author’s previous biographies, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, and for Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe, both won the Pulitzer Prize. As the dean of Lincoln scholars, Donald’s research and presentation of the wartime president ranks at the top of Civil War historiography.

Studies examining, scrutinizing, evaluating, and psychoanalyzing Lincoln abound. Publications pertaining to the president have averaged at an astounding rate of one book per week since his death over one hundred and thirty years ago. Donald’s study of Lincoln, however, proves different from previous works. To start, the author explains that he has produced a biography that seeks “to explain rather than judge” (13). Therefore, the author concentrates his critique of Lincoln “on what Lincoln knew, when he knew it, and why he made his decisions” (14). Rather than offering a traditional biographical format, assessing a past figure based on later and contemporary information, the author writes about Lincoln as Lincoln saw himself. This distinction may appear insignificant at first, but historians must remember that the president did not have the fortune of hindsight. A biography written from a presentist viewpoint proves fresh and enlightening.

Donald’s biography follows a conventional chronological format and chronicles Lincoln’s slow and steady rise from humble beginnings as a youth in frontier Kentucky, his legal career in Illinois, a chaotic married life, numerous political defeats, and his eventual rise to the presidency. The author’s presentation of Lincoln borders on psychohistory but in such a way that enhances the biography. Donald asserts several seemingly contradictory personality characters that Lincoln held. First, the author states that Lincoln’s ascension to the White House was made possible by “his unquenchable ambition” and “supreme self-confidence” (14). The author asserts that Lincoln’s constant desire for self-improvement allowed for his enormous capacity for growth, thus enabling “one of the least experienced and most poorly prepared men ever elected to high office to become the greatest American President” (14). Yet the author also sees rather conflicting qualities in the same man. Donald argues that Lincoln was an extremely fatalistic man who believed in a doctrine of necessity. This principle declares “that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself had no control” (15). At the same time, however, Lincoln also felt that his life had always been directed by a higher power for a greater good. The average reader may likely find Donald’s depiction of Lincoln’s personality difficult to grasp. Nevertheless, the author clearly has no qualms absorbing and explaining such differing character traits.

Donald’s biography clarifies several questions and misconceptions concerning Lincoln’s political views during the Civil War. The author contends that Lincoln’s primary concern during his administration was the preservation of the Union rather than civil liberties. At no time did the President seek the full political and social equality of blacks and whites in the United States. Finally, and perhaps most interesting, Lincoln often explained his approach to politics by stating that his “policy is to have no policy” (15). He served as a reactor rather than an instigator in political decision-making. When questioned on his policy shift to emancipation during the Civil War, he wrote: “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me” (9). And yet, Lincoln often decided the most important issues of his administration in the absence of his cabinet. Such traits prove interesting as Lincoln faced the most intense test in American presidential history.

Well-researched and well-written, Donald’s biography of Lincoln allows for frequent explanation by the President himself through his own words. This fact is supported by the bibliography’s eighty-plus pages of footnotes and sources. Any budding Lincoln scholar would be well-served by consulting the author’s bibliography. A brief historiographical essay explains the bibliography of each chapter. Taken as a whole, the bibliography synthesizes the past fifty years of scholarship on Lincoln and offers the academic reader as much as the general text. This biography, much like Lincoln’s life, will “belong to the ages” (599).