On December 6, 1865, Georgia became the 27th state to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, making the Amendment ratified by three-quarters of the states and thereby adopted. Slavery in the United States was, at last, formally abolished.
The Senate had passed the Amendment in April of 1864, but it took nearly another year for the House of Representatives to do so. As Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln shows, President Abraham Lincoln took … Read more »
On Tuesday, we highlighted WSPWH editor Leon R. Kass’s close reading of the Gettysburg Address as a good way to take advantage of enthusiasm over Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln movie and teach students about our nation’s 16th president.
To complement Kass’s reading, today we bring you another article on Lincoln: Steven B. Smith’s recent essay in National Affairs on “Lincoln’s Constitutional Leadership.” Like Kass, Smith emphasizes Lincoln’s understanding of political … Read more »
With Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln out in theaters, it’s a good time to use the movie as a teaching device to focus students’ attention on our nation’s 16th president. As many commentators have noted, the film presents an opportunity to compare the politics of Lincoln’s time with that of our own. David Brooks, writing at the New York Times, argues that the movie shows the “nobility of politics,” revealing “that you … Read more »
With all the (much deserved) attention Abraham Lincoln is getting as Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln prepares to hit theaters nationwide this weekend, we think it appropriate to highlight a recent review of a book about another man who helped to save the Union: Ulysses S. Grant.
Reviewing The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace, by H.W. Brands, a historian at the University … Read more »
As a new film about Abraham Lincoln prepares to hit theaters nationwide on November 16, we thought it appropriate to highlight two recent articles about the nation’s 16th president. First, writing in the Wall Street Journal, Allen Guelzo, professor of history and director of the Civil War Era Studies Program at Gettysburg College, discusses Lincoln’s understanding of the Emancipation Proclamation, which the president termed “the central act … Read more »
Writing at The Daily Beast, Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton and author of the forthcoming book The Man Who Became Abraham Lincoln: How He Won the Civil War and Was Assassinated, describes the political aptitude of our nation’s 16th president, remarking that “lifting Lincoln above the fray doesn’t remove him from politics. While the political Lincoln may be difficult for us to acknowledge at a time when politics … Read more »
Yesterday, October 15, marked the anniversary of the seventh and final debate of the series between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in their campaign for one of Illinois’s two United States Senate in 1858.
The final debate was held in Alton, Illinois, before a crowd of about 5,000 people. In the debate, Douglas attacked Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech and his understanding of the Declaration of Independence. In response, Lincoln … Read more »
The Library of Congress is about to open up a major new exhibition, “The Civil War in America,” to commemorate the Civil War sesquicentennial. The exhibition, which will be on display from November 12, 2012, through June 1, 2013, at the Jefferson Building of the Library, will feature more than 200 unique items from the Library’s Civil War collection, including diaries, letters, drawings, maps, newspapers, and more.
In prepration for … Read more »
In the Fall 2012 issue of the Lapham’s Quarterly, Michael Phillips-Anderson, professor of communication at Monmouth University, examines the important role that humor plays in presidential elections, writing that “To be elected as a political leader in a democracy is to occupy three positions relative to the other citizens: they must be better than us, for they must lead us; they must be less than us because they err greatly … Read more »
Here is an interesting new fact about Abraham Lincoln that has recently been uncovered by the Irish historian Christine Kinealy: the nation’s sixteenth president was one of the 15,000 people worldwide to donate money to Ireland to aid the country during the Great Irish Famine. The famine, which lasted from 1845 to 1852, was in part caused by a potato blight, leading to approximately a million people dying from starvation. Another … Read more »
Distinguished scholar-teachers Amy and Leon Kass demonstrate how short stories, speeches, and songs can be used to enhance civic education and how a pedagogical approach that stresses learning through inquiry can make primary sources come alive for students of all ages.
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“What a wonderful collection of American songs, speeches, and stories. It should be valuable for teachers, students, parents, and readers of all kinds.”
— Diane Ravitch