Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography Book

William Lee Miller's Lincoln's Virtues is less an "event" chronology than the tracing of the moral and ethical core of Abraham Lincoln's beliefs, what Miller calls the man's "unintended preparation for greatness." Miller posits that Lincoln rightly deserves his nonpareil place in American history. But, he continues, Lincoln's greatness is best appreciated only when we realize he was merely mortal and therefore free to follow any number of courses of actions. Miller, through scores of eloquent exegeses of Lincoln's writings and speeches, explores the path--consistent, though evolving--this free agent took. Lincoln chose politics as his work. As a politician he was subject to the very real constraints of collective action. However, such was the man's "moral self-confidence," that the mantle of greatness alit on his shoulders alone. This is a revealing, delicate, and at times soaring work. It also presupposes its readers are much more than casually familiar with Lincoln's life and times. - -H. O'BillovitchRead More

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  • Product Description

    How did an unschooled career politician named Abraham Lincoln, from the raw frontier villages of early-nineteenth-century Illinois, become one of the most revered of our national icons? This is the question that William Lee Miller explores and answers, in fascinating detail, in Lincolnâ??s Virtues.

    Lincoln, Miller says, was a great man who was also a good man. It is the central thrust of this â??ethical biographyâ? to reveal how he became both, to trace his moral and intellectual development in the context of his times and in confrontation with the leading issues of the dayâ??most notably, of course, that of slavery.

    Following the rough chronology of Lincolnâ??s life up to the crucial decisions in the winter of secession, the narrative portrays his conscious shaping of himself as a writer, speaker, moral agent, politician, and statesman. Miller shows us a man who educated himself through reading, had a mind inclined to plow down to first principles and hold to them, and combined clarity of thought with firmness of will and power of expression, a man whose conduct rose to a higher moral standard the higher his office and the greater his power. The author takes us into the pivotal moments of â??moral escalationâ? in Lincolnâ??s political life, allowing us to see him come gradually to the point at which he was compelled to say, â??Hold fast with a chain of steel.â? Miller makes clear throughout that Lincoln never left behind or â??rose aboveâ? the role of â??politician,â? but rather fulfilled the highest possibilities of this peculiarly honorable democratic vocation.

    Lincolnâ??s Virtues approaches this much-written-about figure from a wholly new standpoint. As a biography uniquely revealing of its subjectâ??s heart and mind, it represents a major contribution to the current and perennial American discussion of national moral conduct, and of the relationship between politics and morality.

  • 037540158X
  • 9780375401589
  • William Lee Miller
  • 1 January 2002
  • Alfred A. Knopf
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 544
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