Judging Lincoln (review)

Judging Lincoln collects several essays and lectures by Frank J. Williams, a justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Williams is an enthusiastic, prolific Lincoln historian and major collector of Lincoln artifacts. Williams displays a remarkable amount of knowledge, including considerable familiarity with a large portion of the documentary evidence about Lincoln. He also expresses some thought-provoking insights that an academic historian or rhetorical scholar might miss. Often, the value of his case does not lie in the thesis of a given essay, but in the interesting arguments with which he demonstrates his points.

The major asseveration in these essays is that Lincoln was the greatest president of the United States. Anyone who has read much Lincoln history is aware of the so-called revisionist school, in which academic historians maintain that Lincoln was a white supremacist, that the Emancipation Proclamation was a political maneuver of little practical import, and that Lincoln was, in general, an opportunistic politician. For that matter, this reviewer sees merit in the revisionist school. It is, nonetheless, interesting to read an essay by an unabashed admirer of Lincoln. Williams does not refute the charges of the revisionists, but he brings to bear a weight of documentary and scholarly evidence showing another side to Lincoln's character. He argues that Lincoln was a sensitive, caring individual, that he was committed to the end of slavery, that he pursued his wartime policies precisely because of his commitment to underlying values.

One central theme of the book, one which Williams' own background enables him to make with considerable insight, is that Lincoln's legal career and skills influenced his political activities. Williams shows how Lincoln's administrative and rhetorical skills alike grew out of his experience as an attorney. Williams draws on his own practical grasp of the lawyer's mind to explain Lincoln's communication with his supporters, his opponents, his generals, and the public. For example, he explains how Lincoln's justification of the Emancipation Proclamation "took the shortest legal distance between two points" (48). Williams summarizes Lincoln's argument: "A commander in chief may under military necessity take property. Slaves are property. Or at least Lincoln the lawyer will treat them as such. Lincoln the man felt differently" (48).

The nine essays cover a variety of topics, ranging from an argument that Lincoln was influenced by the women in his life, to an explanation of how his work as commander in chief was influenced by his experience as an attorney, to a discussion of Lincoln's role in passing the Thirteenth Amendment, and so forth. The book concludes with a chapter, coauthored by Yale professor Mark E. Neely Jr., on current opportunities for the Lincoln collector.

Chapter 7, "The End of Slavery: Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment—What Did He Know and When He Did Know It?" (the odd word order is no accident) illustrates Williams's complex analysis of Lincoln's presidency. The chapter opens with the thesis that "Lincoln's legislative, military, and rhetorical skills formed a seamless fabric of democratic leadership that cloaked a nation during crisis" (128). Williams feels that Lincoln was aware that the Emancipation Proclamation "as a war measure limited to those areas still in rebellion did not have the permanence or legal effect" of an amendment (134). Williams draws inferences from documentary evidence that Lincoln, committed by 1864 to end slavery, employed a variety of political maneuvers, some of them perhaps involving some questionable wheeling and dealing, to secure the passage of the amendment. Thus, Williams does not deny the revisionist's implied charge that Lincoln was often unscrupulous, but instead explains Lincoln's actions in a larger context.

In the process of making points like these, Williams does ignore a considerable amount of evidence that might make Lincoln look bad. However, it is not the purpose of his book to offer a balanced analysis of Lincoln's character. In a sense...