In 1847, in a small rural courthouse in Coles County, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln represented a Kentucky slave owner named Robert Matson in his attempt to recover a runaway slave woman and her four children. Most Americans, even those with a penchant for the nation's history, have never heard of this court case. This is no coincidence. Lincoln's involvement in the case has troubled and bewildered most students and biographers of the "Great Emancipator." In many assessments, the case inspires rationalizations and distortions; in others, avoidance and denial. These approaches are a disservice to the man and to those who seek to understand him.In Lincoln Apostate: The Matson Slave Case, lawyer and historian Charles R. McKirdy digs behind the myths and evasions to determine why Lincoln chose to advocate property rights grounded in a system that he claimed to abhor and pursue the continued enslavement of five of its most vulnerable and sympathetic victims. In a careful and readable blend of narrative and analysis, the book finds the answer in the time and place that was Lincoln's Illinois in 1847, in the laws and judicial decisions that provided the legal backdrop against which the drama of the Matson case was played out, and in the man that Lincoln was thirteen years before he became president.The discussion of Lincoln's decision to represent Matson and the description of the trial itself take nothing at face value. The author examines primary and secondary sources for the ribbon of truth shorn of preconceptions and hollow justifications. Lincoln Apostate scrutinizes Lincoln's motives for choosing as he did and explores the ideals and fears of this very complex man.
Populaire auteurs
Cram101 Textbook Reviews (948) J.S. Bach (447) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (305) Collectif (268) Schrijf als eerste een recensie over dit item (259) Doug Gelbert (238) Princess of Patterns (211) Charles Dickens (209) R.B. Grimm (197) Carolyn Keene (187) Jules Verne (183) Philipp Winterberg (180) William Shakespeare (174) Youscribe (172) Lucas Nicolato (169) Edgar Allan Poe (166) Herman Melville (166) Anonymous (165) Gilad Soffer (164) Robert Louis Stevenson (159)Populaire gewichtsboeken
418 KB 425 KB 435 KB 459 KB 445 KB 439 KB 386 KB 413 KB 493 KB 432 KB 455 KB 471 KB 421 KB 451 KB 485 KB 472 KB 416 KB 369 KB 419 KB 427 KB