Description

The culmination of years of work on Abraham Lincolns political thought Michael Zuckerts A Nation So Conceived argues for a coherent center to Lincolns political ideology Zuckert provides invaluable guidance to understanding both Lincoln and the politics of the United States between 1845 and Lincolns death in 1865 by focusing on roughly a dozen speeches that Lincoln made during his career This listenerfriendly chronological organization is motivated by Zuckerts emphasis on Lincoln as a practical politician who was always fully aware of the political context of the moment

According to Lincolns speech at Gettysburg America was new precisely because it was born in dedication to the first premise of the theory of democratic sovereignty that all men are created equal Lincolns thought consisted in an everdeepening meditation on the grounds and implications of that proposition both in its constructive and in its destructive potential

A Nation So Conceived is devoted to exploring the paradoxical duality of created equal In a nearly comprehensive study of Lincolns thought Zuckert uses lessons he learned from decades of teaching to reveal how Lincoln understood both its truth and its pathological consequences while offering an assessment of his aims and achievements as a statesman