Judging Lincoln

 

Frank J. Williams
Foreward by Harold Holzer
Epilogue by John Y. Simon

paper, 0-8093-2759-7, $17.95t
978-0-8093-2759-1
232 pages, 6 x 9, 49 illus.
American History/Lincoln

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Boldly reassessing the legacy of the sixteenth president

Judging Lincoln collects nine of the most insightful essays on the topic of the sixteenth president written by Frank J. Williams, chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court and one of the nation’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln. For Judge Williams, Lincoln remains the central figure of the American experience—past, present, and future.

Williams begins with a survey of the interest in—and influence of—Lincoln both at home and abroad and then moves into an analysis of Lincoln’s personal character with respect to his ability to foster relationships of equality among his intimates. Williams then addresses Lincoln’s leadership abilities during the span of his career, with particular emphasis on the Civil War.  Next, he compares the qualities of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill. The final essay, cowritten with Mark E. Neely Jr., concerns collecting Lincoln artifacts as a means of preserving and fostering the Lincoln legacy.

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“Judging Lincoln contains many fresh and provocative insights on the life and times of our sixteenth president. [Williams] judges Lincoln with scrupulous and impartial empathy, not overlooking his mistakes but in the end making it clear why the architect of Union and freedom was our greatest president.”—James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

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Frank J. Williams is the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and a well-known expert on Abraham Lincoln. He has authored or edited eleven books and contributed to several others, including The Emancipation Proclamation—Three Views, published in 2006. Williams is the founding chairman of the Lincoln Forum, the current president of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, and a past president of the Abraham Lincoln Association and of the Lincoln Group of Boston. He is also a member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.