It’s out today. I don’t focus on the Civil War or the assassination, but on Lincoln as an apostle of opportunity. I trace how that played out in his personal life and how it defined his politics and policies and what we can learn about it today. Even if you consider yourself a devoted Lincoln fan, I believe you will learn amusing and telling things about him in this book. (I’m so certain about that, I’m offering a money-back guarantee.*)
Over at Breitbart, I have a piece on “The Southern Smear,” the argument we’ve heard most recently from Chris Matthews that because Republicans win in the South, they must be the party of Jefferson Davis:
The Republicans are winning in a South that is diverse and attractive to immigrants; that honors civil rights; that is economically vibrant and features, in the likes of Houston, Charlotte, and Dallas-Ft. Worth, “the next wave of great American cities,” in the words of the urbanist Joel Kotkin; that is increasingly attractive to manufacturers.
In other words, they are winning in a South that exemplifies Lincoln’s life-long commitment to equality of opportunity and economic dynamism.
Over at Powerline, I discuss more about the book:
[Lincoln] had two large goals, both of which had to do with making America more thoroughly a nation of opportunity. One was to end the backwoods isolation in which he grew up. This drew him to the Whigs. The party had an economic program geared toward developing a diverse, market economy where people had options besides being farmers. And it put great stock in “self-improvement,” i.e., the education, discipline, and orderliness that tended to be in short supply on the frontier.
Even though he grew up surrounded by Jacksonian Democrats — who romanticized rural life — Lincoln became a thoroughgoing and committed Whig, and turned his back on his family and its way of life as soon as he could escape.
The second goal was to end slavery, a system that obviously denied an entire class of people any opportunity and also blighted the chances of non-slaveholding whites unable to compete with the plantations.
And as John mentioned, I talk with him in today’s Between the Covers.
* Certain restrictions may apply.