Dual Book Review: Lincoln at Gettysburg and Lincoln at Cooper Union

 

Lincoln at Gettysburg, The Words that Remade America by Garry Wills

Lincoln at Copper Union, The Speech that Made Abraham Lincoln President by Harold Holzer

Each of these books covers a single important speech by Abraham Lincoln. The Cooper Union Address set a course for his presidential quest and the famous Gettysburg Address reset the course of the war. The speeches were delivered about three and a half years apart. The Cooper Union Address was given in New York City on February 27, 1860, prior to Lincoln’s nomination as the Republican presidential candidate. The Gettysburg Address was delivered on November 19, 1863, about four months after the battle.

Both books are highly readable and well researched. Wills’ won the Pulitzer Prize with Lincoln at Gettysburg and Holzer’s won the Lincoln Prize with his book about the Cooper Union Address.

It might seem hard to write an entire book about a single speech, but Wills and Holzer had no difficulty filling the pages. More important, readers will have no problem gobbling them up. The books are kept interesting by providing context, motivations, lifestyle, period travel, and supposed Lincoln collaboration with others in his political circle. I say supposed because Lincoln sought out advice and gave everyone the impression that he valued their suggestions and edits, however he used these changes sparingly. To a degree, this was a Lincoln technique to build support for an address prior to delivering it.

The pair of speeches have many similarities. Both were high-minded. Both had an important objective. Both advanced the abolition of slavery. Both were crafted to be heard and read. Both surprised their audiences. Both were memorable. They also had differences, the greatest being length. The Cooper Union Address was nearly an hour and at over seven thousand words, one of Lincoln’s longest speeches, while the Gettysburg address took only two minutes to deliver and contained a mere 272 words.

If you are interested in Abraham Lincoln or how to craft a great speech, these books are indispensable. They are well written, thoroughly researched, and fascinating reads.

The Impending Crisis of the South, Hinton Rowan Helper

The Impending Crisis of the South, How to Meet It
Hinton Rowan Helper

This book appealed to me for four reasons. 1) It was written in 1857 by a participant of the era. 2) It was an anti-slavery book written by a Southerner, 3) the book created a movement called Helperism, 4) Lincoln appointed Helper consul to Argentina, which meant he had probably read the book. (Further evidence that Lincoln had read the book is a section of his Cooper Union Address which far more eloquently echoes one of Helper’s commentaries.)

When writing a historical novel, it’s crucial to get inside the heads of the people who actually experienced the period. One technique is to read contemporaneous writings, including books, periodicals, newspapers, and speeches.

Helper’s thesis is that slavery harms economic growth, inventiveness, and the middleclass. He uses extensive census statistics to solidly prove his case.  The overwhelming quantity of data is convincing … but also dull. Luckily, the numbers can be scanned after the reader gets used to his presentation style. If you are interested in the data, I would recommend a print format instead of an e-book.

The Impending Crisis of the South provides an interesting and pertinent perspective on the economics of slavery.

(This is a research book for Maelstrom, a sequel to Tempest at Dawn.)

February 27, 1860: Abraham Lincoln Delivers His Cooper Union Address

On the evening of February 27, 1860, New Yorkers paid an exorbitant twenty-five cents to listen to a commonplace politician from some prairie state. The man had a reputation as a storyteller extraordinaire. Everyone expected to be entertained; few took the speaker seriously as a presidential candidate. Abraham Lincoln had earned a modicum of fame due to his debates with Senator Stephen Douglas two years previously, but he had lost that race and most believed the fledgling Republican Party would never nominate a loser. In fact, many wondered how this roughhewn storyteller wangled an invitation to a lecture series meant to expose serious candidates to the New York elite? Homespun yarns might draw crowds in the bucolic West, but New York City demanded a more elevated style of speechmaking.

Read all about it at Constituting America