And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (Random House Large Print)

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illegitimate children are oftentimes sturdier and brighter than those born in lawful wedlock,” Herndon said, “and in his case, he believed that his better nature and finer qualities came from this broad-minded, unknown Virginian. On the first day of creation, God said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), and light appeared as a thing separate from darkness. about 1,000 yards from the Confederate headquarters on Missionary Ridge, site of a Union victory on Nov. Meacham’s response to them is less explicit but no less potent, as he makes the case that such a worldview is, well, not very Christian at all. Here is the Lincoln who, as a boy, was steeped in the sermons of emancipation by Baptist preachers; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him light to see the right.

Voice and sound there could be none, nor was there any person to whom God addressed this word of power. A government is to protect each man in the entire and actual enjoyment of all the unalienable rights…. VERDICT A scholarly book on the life, triumphs, and heartbreaks of Abraham Lincoln's life, but general readers may enjoy it too. As a personal aside, I loved the next years of Abraham Lincoln as he was a circuit lawyer and traveled throughout Illinois. The author provides in-depth analysis of Lincoln’s career as president and on how his thoughts on the issues of slavery and the status of African Americans changed during the course of the war, right up to the Union victory.Herndon was struck by the details of the exchange and the depth of feeling evident in Lincoln’s tone.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. As a child and a youth, living in poverty, embarrassed by stories of promiscuity in his mother’s family, and facing a life of spirit-sapping labor and drudgery, Lincoln likely sought solace in the belief that he was a son of forebears who had transcended their time and place. Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln with his trademark journalistic style that is both accessible and engaging.He described his grandmother Lucey, whom a grand jury once charged with fornication, as “a halfway prostitute.