78 items
In this short clip, historian David Blight discusses the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Inside the Vault: Abraham Lincoln
Originally broadcast on November 12, 2020, this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores Gilder Lehrman Collection materials relating to the life of Abraham Lincoln, both before and after he...
Abraham Lincoln: A Man for All Seasons
Overview At one time in our country’s history we stood divided as a nation over the issue of slavery. It was Abraham Lincoln’s ideology and sense of purpose that helped to unite our country and set us on a path toward realizing the...
Frederick Douglass’s tribute to Abraham Lincoln, 1880
Despite initial differences, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln forged a relationship over the course of the Civil War based on a shared vision. Fifteen years after Lincoln’s death, Douglass described him as "one of the noblest...
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
Columbia University historian Eric Foner discusses his most recent work, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery , with James G. Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Professor Foner was...
Africans’ Appropriations of the Symbolism of Abraham Lincoln
Noted Lincoln historians discuss Lincoln's legacy at the Gilder Lehrman-sponsored Global Lincoln Symposium held at Oxford University.
Abraham Lincoln and the Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment
"Those who knew Mr. Lincoln best," wrote Illinois Congressman Isaac Arnold, "knew that he looked, confidently, to the ultimate extinction of slavery" and used "every means which his prudent and scrupulous mind recognized as right and...
Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan
Essential Question To what degree was Abraham Lincoln successful in achieving his goals? Background The Civil War was perhaps the most momentous event that the United States endured in its history. Author and historian Shelby Foote...
James Oakes - "The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution"
Order The Crooked Path to Abolition at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
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Douglass and Lincoln: A Convergence
In 1880, Osborn Oldroyd invited Frederick Douglass to write something for a collection of tributes to Abraham Lincoln, published two years later as The Lincoln Memorial: Album-Immortelles . Douglass was uncharacteristically brief, but...
President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, 1865
Just 701 words long, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address took only six or seven minutes to deliver, yet contains many of the most memorable phrases in American political oratory. The speech contained neither gloating nor rejoicing....
President Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, 1861
On March 4, 1861, the day Abraham Lincoln was first sworn into office as President of the United States, the Chicago Tribune printed this special pamphlet of his First Inaugural Address. In the address, the new president appealed to...
Frederick Douglass on Lincoln and Reconstruction
Dickinson College historian Matthew Pinsker describes changes in Frederick Douglass’s opinion of Abraham Lincoln between Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 and the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, DC, in...
Lincoln on the execution of a slave trader, 1862
This stunning document, a refusal of clemency for a convicted slave trader, stands out among the papers of Abraham Lincoln, a man renowned for his mercy and willingness to pardon. In November 1861, Nathaniel Gordon was convicted of...
Lincoln and Emancipation: Black Enfranchisement in 1863 Louisiana
As the president of a fractured nation, Abraham Lincoln faced no issue more perplexing than that of restoring the rebel states to the Union. Reconstruction during wartime was, he judged, "the greatest question ever presented to...
"Your Late Lamented Husband": A Letter from Frederick Douglass to Mary Todd Lincoln
On March 4, 1865, Frederick Douglass attended President Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration. Standing in the crowd, Douglass heard Lincoln declare slavery the "cause" and emancipation the "result" of the Civil War. Over the crisp...
Inside the Vault: Lincoln’s Refusal to Pardon Nathaniel Gordon
“It becomes my painful duty to admonish the prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by Human Authority, he refer himself alone to the mercy of the Common God and Father of all men.” —Abraham Lincoln, February 4, 1862...
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America
Allen C. Guelzo, Grace F. Kea Professor of American History at Eastern College, examines the sources, language, and impact of the Emancipation Proclamation, concluding that it was the last and best example in nineteenth-century...
Paul Escott - "Black Suffrage: Lincoln's Last Goal"
Paul D. Escott is Reynolds Professor (Emeritus) of History at Wake Forest University. Order Black Suffrage at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you...
"Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreno Played the Piano for President Lincoln"
As a little girl, Teresa Carreño loved to let her hands dance across the beautiful keys of the piano. If she felt sad, music cheered her up, and when she was happy, the piano helped her share that joy. Soon she was writing her own...
Jonathan W. White - "A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House"
Jonathan W. White is professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University. Order A House Built By Slaves at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
The "House Divided" Speech, ca. 1857–1858
By 1850, the extension of slavery into the new territories won through the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848 provided a testing ground for competing visions of America. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and the Kansas...
The Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863
The Emancipation Proclamation was shaped by both pragmatic considerations and Lincoln’s deeply held, lifelong hatred of slavery. It was timed, after the Union victory at Antietam, to strike a military blow against the South’s economic...
Inside the Vault: David Blight Discusses Frederick Douglass Documents
On February 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Dr. David Blight to discuss his favorite Frederick Douglass documents in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Click here to download the slides from the presentation. Featured Documents...
The Road to War
‘A house divided against itself can not stand’ I believe this government can not endure permanently, half slave, and half free . . . I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it...
Inside the Vault: The Emancipation Proclamation & FDR’s Advice to Students
The Gilder Lehrman curators were joined by Hamilton ’s Tyler Belo on September 3, 2020, in this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection where they celebrated the start of the school year with three...
Ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment, 1866
President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves only in Confederate states still at war with the Union on January 1, 1863, and as a wartime order, it could be reversed by subsequent presidential proclamation,...
The Failure of Compromise
In the spring of 1861, the United States of America split into two hostile countries—the United States and the new Confederate States of America. The two opposing heads of state agreed about what was causing the rupture—the long...
Guided Readings: Secession and the Civil War
Reading 1 The leaders and oracles of the most powerful party in the United States have denounced us as tyrants and unprincipled heathens through the whole civilized world. They have preached it from their pulpits. They have declared...
The Union Army and Juneteenth, 1865
This engraving depicts a White Union soldier reading the Emancipation Proclamation to an enslaved family. It was published in 1864 by Lucius Stebbins, based on a painting by Henry W. Herrick. According to Stebbins, the scene ...
The Fifteenth Amendment, 1870
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments gave constitutional status to emancipation’s promise. The Fifteenth Amendment provided suffrage for black men, declaring that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote...
Guided Readings: Sectional Conflict
Reading 1 I do not . . . hesitate to avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the living God, that if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the territories of California and New Mexico, purchased by the...
Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
By early 1863, voluntary enlistments in the Union army had fallen so sharply that the federal government instituted an unpopular military draft and decided to enroll Black as well as White troops. Indeed, it seems likely that it was...
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
In 1877, soon after retiring as president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, embarked with his wife on a two-year tour of the world. At almost every location, he was greeted as a hero. In England, the son of the Duke of...
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