The Lincoln Enigma: The Changing Faces of an American Icon (review)

The Lincoln Enigma: The Changing Faces of an American Icon. Edited by Gabor S. Boritt. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. 317. Cloth, $30.00.)

In his latest edited collection of essays, Gabor S. Boritt tackles the legacy of Abraham Lincoln as historical cipher. The contributors turn Lincoln over like a curio, searching for new insights into the inscrutability of his character. The introduction serves up a smorgasbord of Lincoln sightings in popular culture, many of which are rife with irony, but Boritt offers very little in the way of sustained analysis of these rich examples, and there is no coherent presentation of the themes that hold the volume together. Although all the essays lament the static treatment of their particular subject in previous scholarship, not all succeed changing the terms of the debate. The repetition of examples throughout the essays is notable. While these examples are apt in each essay, they suggest a rehashing of old material rather than a breaking of new ground. The essays were presented at the 2000 summer session of the Civil War Institute in Gettysburg and retain much of their original informal style; some essays lapse into narrative anecdote rather than analysis. Several essays, however, stand out as interesting discussions of neglected topics.

Boritt emphasizes the important difference for nineteenth-century Americans between the issue of slavery and the issue of race; he puts Lincoln's statements about civil rights for African Americans and colonization in the context of contemporary prejudices. Although he advocated colonization in 1862, Lincoln did not publicly mention it, or provide support for it, again. He was its most prominent advocate and the agent of its demise. Jean H. Baker argues that most of the discussion of the Lincolns' marriage is anecdotal, positing as unusual aspects of their marriage that were common marriage practices in the nineteenth century. Baker rests her own analysis on the Lincolns' own writings, rather than relying on external reports of Mary's irrational behavior in the last years of their marriage, and argues that they had an ongoing intimate relationship. She emphasizes their mutual interest in politics and the engaged role that Mary played in Lincoln's political world, often to the distaste of Lincoln's advisors. David Herbert Donald demonstrates the ways in which Davis's reaction to Lincoln's war measures, particularly the suspension of habeas corpus, tied his own hands: having held Lincoln up as a despot, Davis could not make use of similar strategies himself. Allen C. Guelzo offers a closely argued analysis of the use of the proverb—"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver"—to describe Lincoln's understanding of the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He persuasively dismantles the argument that Lincoln held no regard for the Constitution. The epilogue, which is a collection of images of Lincoln in art and popular culture, is very suggestive but it lacks adequate analytical framework.

All of these essays point to the ways in which scholars of Lincoln have not hesitated to make him a hobby horse for their ideological position, often with slight regard for the historical record. They demonstrate that Lincoln's enigmatic nature lies as much in the partisan hagiography/demonology of the scholarship as it did in the actions of Lincoln, himself.