Lincoln on Democracy: His Own Words, with Essays by America’s Foremost Civil War Historians

edited by Mario M. Cuomo and Harold Holzer
The country’s leading expert on Abraham Lincoln, Harold Holzer, and author and former New York governor, Mario M. Cuomo, present an incomparable selection of speeches, excerpts of speeches, letters, fragments, and other writings by Lincoln on the theme of democracy in this volume aptly entitled Lincoln on Democracy: His Own Words, with Essays by America’s Foremost Civil War Historians. Selected by nationally-recognized historians, the writings include such standards as the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address, delivered in the Adams County community on November 19, 1863, but also little known papers, including a letter assuring a general that he felt safe—drafted just three days before the president’s assassination in 1865. Lincoln on Democracy is an extensively annotated resource in which his writings are grouped into seven sections that chronicle the growth of his ideas on the fundamental issues of democracy, from his first political campaign in 1832 to his death at the hands of John Wilkes Booth. Each section features a detailed introduction written by a well-known historian, a photograph of Lincoln at that particular time, and a narrative describing the source and the occasion for which the image was made. Holzer and Cuomo have written a new preface to this unusual book—now back in print after many years—that offers a fresh assessment of Lincoln’s classic statements and remarkable commentary. 416 pages, paperback