lincoln

THE CASE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, A story of Adultery, Murder, and the Making of a Great President; by Julie M.Fenster Julie Fenster’s new book is not only a fascinating look at a side of Abraham Lincoln—his daily life as an influential Illinois lawyer in the year’s before he became president—but an illuminating study about how he and his abolitionist associates succeeded in fusing anti-slavery Democrats and Whigs and to create the Republican party. Lincoln’s role as a wartime president tends to overshadow the fact of his crucial involvement not only in exposing his arch rival Stephen Douglas, author of the infamous Kansas-Nebraska act that opened the western territories of the United States to slavery—but in the nitty-gritty, day-to-day politicking that preceded, and was crucial to the party’s victory at the polls in the 1860 presidential election. These days there is a lot of hand-wringing about how the internecine struggle in the present election campaign may fracture the Democratic Party and even allow Republicans to salvage victory from what seemed like a sure defeat, I find that highly doubtful considering the rate of the economic meltdown which—along with the Iraq war—should finally and unequivocally establish Bush’s legacy as the worst president in U.S. history and doom his would-be Republican successor; but even if this were not the case, I suggest that the way in which the Republican party came to power offers a hopeful model for a long overdue shakeup in the American political scene.