Lincoln and Abolition
For general background, be sure to look at articles and supplementary sources that I suggest in our HISTORY NOW “Abolition” issue of September 2005:
/historynow/ 09_2005/index.php
The following books will give you helpful information on the specifics of Lincoln’s position on abolition:
Korngold, Ralph. Two Friends of Man: The Story of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, and Their Relationship with Abraham Lincoln. Boston: Little, Brown, 1950.
Kraditor, Aileen. Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850. New York: Pantheon Books, 1969.
Mayer, Henry. All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
McPherson, James M. The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964. McPherson examines the attitudes of American opponents of slavery during the course of the war.
Stewart, James Brewer. Wendell Phillips: Liberty’s Hero. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986.
Thomas, John L. The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison, A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.
Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of
Slavery, and the
Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press,
2001. This is an excellent overview of contemporary moral, legal, and
constitutional debates on the end of slavery.
Wieck, Carl F. Lincoln's Quest for Equality: The Road to Gettysburg. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002. This book has excellent chapters on Lincoln’s “abolitionism,” and on Lincoln and Theodore Parker.
Wilson, Douglas L., and Rodney O. Davis, eds., with the assistance of Terry Wilson. Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
You can consult the following sources on speeches:
Peoria Speech of October1854:
Address to Washingtonian Society, 1842:
http://www.assumption.edu/ahc/LincolnTemperanceAddress
Temperance Speech, 1842:
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/temperance.htm
Lincoln-Douglas Debates:
