Lincoln Reshapes the Presidency.

Lincoln Reshapes the Presidency. Edited by Charles M. Hubbard. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2003. Pp. x, 236. $29.95, ISBN 0-86554817-X.)

These collected essays are based on papers presented at the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum's 2001 Lincoln Symposium. They address how Lincoln's "actions reshaped the executive branch of the government for future generations" (p. 1). As with work resulting from most conferences, these essays vary considerably in interest and quality. Lincoln Reshapes the Presidency includes essays on topics ranging from Lincoln's pardon policy to Mary Lincoln's efforts to shape her husband's memory. However, despite a caveat acknowledging that some essays cover areas that "are subtle yet significant in the transformation of the sixteenth president and the office he held," readers should be aware that Lincoln is oddly absent from a number of these pieces, and not all authors convincingly engage the transformation of the executive office (p. 6). Scholars interested in issues transcending the minutiae of Lincoln scholarship should closely attend essays by Lucas E. Morel and Michael Vorenberg.

Morel's essay, "America's First Black President? Lincoln's Legacy of Political Transcendence," engages author Toni Morrison's musings on whether Bill Clinton was this country's first black president, asking instead whether that appellation might be better ascribed to Abraham Lincoln, who, after all, was known as the Great Emancipator. As Morel adds, "Lerone Bennett's resurrected claim that Abraham Lincoln was a racist" provides this question with added resonance (p. 121). Morel's essay is centered on the seeming contradiction between two of Frederick Douglass's famous assessments of Lincoln: first, in June 1865, soon after Lincoln's assassination, that Lincoln was "the black man's president," and second, in April 1876, that Lincoln was "preeminently the white man's president" (pp. 131, 130). Morel's careful textual analysis of Douglass's speeches reminds readers of the context and intent of Douglass's latter appraisal. As the northern commitment to Reconstruction seemed to be waning, Douglass had a vested interest in connecting white Americans to Lincoln's legacy, not so much to shape their memory of Lincoln as to guide their own actions. As Morel asserts, Douglass wanted white Americans to follow Lincoln's example in their treatment of African Americans as they "worked to reconstruct the nation after a bitterly fought war among themselves" (p. 139).

Vorenberg's essay, "A King's Cure, A King's Style: Lincoln, Leadership, and the Thirteenth Amendment," argues that the development and passage of this amendment serves as a window into Lincoln's legislative leadership. Lincoln's wartime policies have given rise to the perception that Lincoln was "disengaged from Congress," but Vorenberg asserts that this model "simply falls apart" when Lincoln's actions on behalf of the Thirteenth Amendment are more closely considered (p. 156). Vorenberg contends that Lincoln "practiced a form of strategic intervention" and monitors four stages of the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to elucidate Lincoln's approach (p. 156). Even when Lincoln's actions are acknowledged, their intent has been obscured. For instance, regarding Lincoln's intervention to ensure that the 1864 campaign platform included emancipation, Vorenberg emphasizes that Lincoln did so not merely to ensure its inclusion. Instead, because Lincoln was concerned that controversy over the issue of black equality would divide the nation at a critical juncture, he acted to prevent a far more radical Republican initiative that combined emancipation with civil rights legislation. Indeed, as Vorenberg argues, Lincoln's motivation was clarified in his pocket-veto of the Wade-Davis bill: "Rather than acknowledge the amendment for what it was--a component of congressional reconstruction--he framed it as an alternative to congressional reconstruction" (p. 163).

Both Morel's and Vorenberg's essays take well-known events and, by providing in-depth analysis of context and intent, offer interesting and fresh interpretations that make Lincoln Reshapes the Presidency worth investigating.

California State University, San Bernardino 

PEARL T. PONCE