Discusses President Lincoln's decision to go to war with the seceded South, and highlights how citizens, party activists, state officials, and national leaders in the North responded to the political crisis.

When Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 prompted several Southern states to secede, the North was sharply divided over how to respond. In this groundbreaking and highly praised book, McClintock follows the decision-making process from bitter partisan rancor to consensus. From small towns to big cities and from state capitals to Washington, D.C., McClintock highlights individuals both powerful and obscure to demonstrate the ways ordinary citizens, party activists, state officials, and national leaders interacted to influence the Northern response to what was essentially a political crisis. He argues that although Northerners' reactions to Southern secession were understood and expressed through partisan newspapers and officials, the decision fell into the hands of an ever-smaller group of people until finally it was Lincoln alone who would choose whether the future of the American republic was to be determined through peace or by sword.

The Civil War placed the U.S. Constitution under unprecedented--and, to this day, still unmatched--strain. Neely examines for the first time in one book the U.S. Constitution and its often overlooked cousin, the Confederate Constitution, and the ways the documents shaped the struggle for national survival.

Why did eleven slave states secede from the Union in 1860-61? Why did the eighteen free states loyal to the Union deny the legitimacy of secession, and take concrete steps after Fort Sumter to subdue what President Abraham Lincoln deemed treasonous rebellion? At the Precipice seeks to answer these and related questions by focusing on the different ways in which Americans, North and South, black and white, understood their interests, rights, and honor during the late antebellum years. Rather than give a narrative account of the crisis, Shearer Davis Bowman takes readers into the minds of the leading actors, examining the lives and thoughts of such key figures as Abraham Lincoln, James Buchanan, Jefferson Davis, John Tyler, and Martin Van Buren. Bowman also provides an especially vivid glimpse into what less famous men and women in both sections thought about themselves and the political, social, and cultural worlds in which they lived, and how their thoughts informed their actions in the secession period. Intriguingly, secessionists and Unionists alike glorified the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, yet they interpreted those sacred documents in markedly different ways and held very different notions of what constituted "American" values.

“A heartening reminder that politicians, at their best, can rise above petty rivalries and jealousies to serve a larger cause.” —Don H. Doyle, author of The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War The Civil War marked a significant turning point in American history—not only for the United States itself but for its relations with foreign powers both during and after the conflict. The friendship and foreign policy partnership between President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward shaped those US foreign policies. These unlikely allies, who began as rivals during the 1860 presidential nomination, helped ensure that America remained united and prospered in the aftermath of the nation’s consuming war. In Lincoln, Seward, and US Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era, Joseph A. Fry examines the foreign policy decisions that resulted from this partnership and the legacy of those decisions. Lincoln and Seward, despite differences in upbringing, personality, and social status, both adamantly believed in the preservation of the union and the need to stymie slavery. They made that conviction the cornerstone of their policies abroad, and through those policies, such as Seward threatening war with any nation that intervened in the Civil War, they prevented European intervention that could have led to Northern defeat. The Union victory allowed America to resume imperial expansion, a dynamic that Seward sustained beyond Lincoln’s death during his tenure as President Andrew Johnson’s Secretary of State. Fry’s analysis of the Civil War from an international perspective and the legacy of US policy decisions provides a more complete view of the war and a deeper understanding of this crucial juncture in American history.

In a meticulously researched and engagingly written narrative, Brian McGinty rescues the story of Abraham Lincoln and the Supreme Court from long and undeserved neglect, recounting the compelling history of the Civil War president's relations with the nation's highest tribunal and the role it played in resolving the agonizing issues raised by the conflict. Lincoln was, more than any other president in the nation's history, a "lawyerly" president, the veteran of thousands of courtroom battles, where victories were won, not by raw strength or superior numbers, but by appeals to reason, citations of precedent, and invocations of justice. He brought his nearly twenty-five years of experience as a practicing lawyer to bear on his presidential duties to nominate Supreme Court justices, preside over a major reorganization of the federal court system, and respond to Supreme Court decisions--some of which gravely threatened the Union cause. The Civil War was, on one level, a struggle between competing visions of constitutional law, represented on the one side by Lincoln's insistence that the United States was a permanent Union of one people united by a "supreme law," and on the other by Jefferson Davis's argument that the United States was a compact of sovereign states whose legal ties could be dissolved at any time and for any reason, subject only to the judgment of the dissolving states that the cause for dissolution was sufficient. Alternately opposed and supported by the justices of the Supreme Court, Lincoln steered the war-torn nation on a sometimes uncertain, but ultimately triumphant, path to victory, saving the Union, freeing the slaves, and preserving the Constitution for future generations.

Lincolns Loyal Lady: Anna Ella Carroll, a Brief The story of Abraham Lincolns female kitchen cabinet member?a formidable, trailblazing woman?is a tale some dont want to be told. Anna Ella Carroll broke all the rules for a woman of the Civil War era. A politician, pamphleteer, adviser to President Lincoln, and military secret agent, Carroll operated in the highest political and government circles for more than a quarter of a century. Washington, DC, the White House, May 12, 1862 I will tell you what Mr. Lincoln said of you last night. Miss Anna Ella Carroll is the head of the Carroll race, and when the history of this war is written, she will stand a good bit taller than ever old Charles [Carroll] did. Rep. William Mitchell (R-Ind.), 13 May 1862 The Hon. Benjamin F. Wade, former chairman, Committee on the Conduct of the War, May 10, 1876, House Misc. Doc. 58, May 18, 1878, p. 24: In the very last interview with Mr. Stanton, just before his death, he referred to your [Carrolls] services . . . in the strongest terms he could express, and . . . stated that if his life should be spared, he would discharge the great duty of seeing your services to the country properly recognized and rewarded. Your claim is righteous and just, if ever there was one and, for the honor of my country, I trust and hope that you will be suitably rewarded, and so declared before the world. Lucinda B. Chandler, Anna Ella Carroll: The Great Unrecognized Military Genius of the War of Rebellion, Godeys Magazine, 1896 Can we afford to leave in the archive of our history only this record of ineffable meanness and ingratitude? Kay Larsons insightful account of the contributions made to our nation by Anna Ella Carroll redresses a major inequity in the historiography of nineteenth-century America. Col. James S. Wheeler, professor of history retired, US Military Academy, West Point, New York

"Simply the best book that has been published on this great president's humor and stories...Everyone interested in Abraham Lincoln will want to read this."—William C. Harris, author of Lincoln and the Border States Abraham Lincoln has long been admired for his leadership, honesty, and eloquence. But despite his somber reputation, the sixteenth president was quite funny. With an uncanny ability to mimic others and an irresistible midwestern twang, Lincoln, in fact, could be downright hilarious. Brimming with his funniest quips, jokes, and stories, Lincoln's Gift explores the crucial role humor played throughout his tumultuous professional and private life. Perfect for history buffs and Lincoln enthusiasts alike, this clever and captivating biography reveals how America's greatest president used his lighter side to lead the country through one of its darkest times, the Civil War. "Gordon Leidner ingeniously blends a study of Lincoln's humor with an account of his life, showing how our sixteenth president was not always a 'man of sorrows' but often a man of laughter, capable alike of enjoying as well as telling a good story."—Michael Burlingame, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life

This collection includes speeches, letters, and other important documents from every American president from George Washington to Barack Obama.