Abraham Lincolns Political Faith

Author : Joseph R. Fornieri
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780875806051
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Abraham Lincoln's Political Faith written by Joseph R. Fornieri and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At Gettysburg Lincoln resolved that "this nation, under God," would not perish, and in his Second Inaugural he called for "firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right." How are we to understand these and other invocations of divine authority in the speeches and writings of America's most admired president? Exploring Lincoln's unique blending of religion and politics, Fornieri shows that Lincoln presented a comprehensive and compelling interpretation of political order founded upon American democratic and religious traditions. Proslavery theologians based their claims to legitimacy on Scripture, but Lincoln denounced this position as incompatible with true religion, reason, and republicanism. He envisioned instead a united nation that would honor both God and American political principles. Fornieri casts Lincoln's unique combination of politics and piety as "biblical republicanism"--a merging of Judeo-Christian beliefs and the founders' tradition of self-government. In a time of unprecedented crisis and upheaval, biblical republicanism provided Lincoln with a moral justification for difficult political choices. Fornieri demonstrates the sincerity of Lincoln's belief and reveals the remarkable consistency between his public and private religious views. Though Lincoln's faith deepened during the turbulent war years and after the death of his son, Willie, his articulation of this faith remained consistent throughout much of his life. Convinced that religion was a crucial aspect of life, Lincoln maintained that his own faith guided and shaped his political thought. In contrast to scholars who have emphasized the Lyceum Address as the key to understanding Lincoln's religion and politics, Fornieri brings forth the Peoria Address of 1854 as a more profound and mature reflection of Lincoln's political faith. At Peoria, Lincoln invoked the Declaration of Independence as the nation's moral covenant, characterizing the struggle over extending slavery as a clash between rival political faiths. He emphasized that the Union was worthy of preservation in light of the Declaration's principles of liberty and equality, and that these principles were best secured under the auspices of national Union committed to the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln's Political Faith sheds new light on how the Great Emancipator's personal trust in a living God shaped his vision for a new America.

Author : Glen E. Thurow
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780873953344
Total Pages : 146 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Abraham Lincoln and American Political Religion written by Glen E. Thurow and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1976-01-01 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lincoln's major public speeches are examined in this analysis of his attempt to create a political religion through his language of intense religious feeling.

Author : Philip L. Ostergard
Publisher : NavPress
ISBN 13 : 1496415469
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Inspired Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln written by Philip L. Ostergard and published by NavPress. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not long after Lincoln's assassination, the debate began: Was Lincoln a committed Christian or a confirmed skeptic? Scholar Philip Ostergard provides the answer with a thorough study of the president's references to God, the Bible, and Christian principles in his letters and speeches. The Inspired Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln illustrates the depth of Lincoln's knowledge of Scripture; the Bible's influence on his character; and the development of his faith, particularly as he wrestled with the issue of slavery and led the nation through the tumultuous years of the Civil War. Readers will find this a fascinating and inspiring handbook of answers to the questions about one of our greatest presidents.

Author : Stewart Lance Winger
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780875803005
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Lincoln, Religion, and Romantic Cultural Politics written by Stewart Lance Winger and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nature of Abraham Lincoln's religious beliefs is perhaps the most perplexing enigma of his legacy. Examining the relationship between Lincoln's religious language and antebellum political culture, Winger offers a new perspective on the Great Emancipator. Lincoln's greatest speeches, Winger shows, articulate a Romantic Protestant vision of American identity and destiny. Recent considerations of Lincoln's religion have presented conflicting views of the president as either a conventional nineteenth-century evangelical or a skeptic in the tradition of Thomas Paine. Winger offers an illuminating alternative based on the connections between Lincoln's personal piety and his public performance. Exploring Lincoln's quest for the moral basis of politics, Winger shows that Lincoln's religious language reflected a poetic, Romantic understanding of faith and its political implications. A man who took ideas seriously, Lincoln conducted a decades-long dialogue with Stephen Douglas and George Bancroft about popular sovereignty and America's place in history. Although the Lincoln-Douglas debates became almost theological arguments about the ethics of slavery in a democracy, they were carried out in the context of intense party politics and personal ambition. Throughout, Lincoln expressed an intellectually grounded piety that placed his beloved Union under the judgment of both history and God. The crisis of war transformed and deepened Lincoln's religious politics, and the Second Inaugural Address reveals a Lincoln brought to humility by his powerlessness before God's commanding will. Lincoln, Religion, and Romantic Cultural Politics presents a powerful vision of Lincoln, one that will challenge and intrigue everyone interested in this towering figure.

Author : Kenneth W. Thompson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Essays on Lincoln's Faith and Politics written by Kenneth W. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Lucas E. Morel
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739157205
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Lincoln's Sacred Effort written by Lucas E. Morel and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2000-01-19 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lucas Morel examines what the public life of Abraham Lincoln teaches about the role of religion in a self-governing society. Lincoln's understanding of the requirements of republican government led him to accommodate and direct religious sentiment toward responsible self-government. As a successful republic requires a moral or self-controlled people, Lincoln believed, the moral and religious sensibilities of a society should be nurtured.

Author : Grant N. Havers
Publisher : University of Missouri
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love written by Grant N. Havers and published by University of Missouri. This book was released on 2009-11-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Havers argues that it is simplistic to conflate Lincoln's invocation of "with charity for all" with his abiding support for the ideal of human equality. The ethic of charity in his view also brought a uniquely Christian realism to the universalism of democracy. He also describes how, since World War I, intellectuals and political leaders have denied that there exists a necessary relation between democracy and Christian love, proposing that democracy is sufficiently ethical without reliance on a specific religious tradition. Today's neoconservatives and liberals instead posit a universal yearning for democracy that requires no foundation in the ethic of charity. Havers shows that this democratic universalism, espoused by those who believe a "chosen people" should uphold the natural rights of humanity, is alien to the sober thought of both the founders and Lincoln.".

Author : Joseph R. Fornieri
Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 0809333309
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Abraham Lincoln, Philosopher Statesman written by Joseph R. Fornieri and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2014-06-04 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2015 ISHS Superior Achievement Award What constitutes Lincoln’s political greatness as a statesman? As a great leader, he saved the Union, presided over the end of slavery, and helped to pave the way for an interracial democracy. His great speeches provide enduring wisdom about human equality, democracy, free labor, and free society. Joseph R. Fornieri contends that Lincoln’s political genius is best understood in terms of a philosophical statesmanship that united greatness of thought and action, one that combined theory and practice. This philosophical statesmanship, Fornieri argues, can best be understood in terms of six dimensions of political leadership: wisdom, prudence, duty, magnanimity, rhetoric, and patriotism. Drawing on insights from history, politics, and philosophy, Fornieri tackles the question of how Lincoln’s statesmanship displayed each of these crucial elements. Providing an accessible framework for understanding Lincoln’s statesmanship, this thoughtful study examines the sixteenth president’s political leadership in terms of the traditional moral vision of statecraft as understood by epic political philosophers such as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Fornieri contends that Lincoln’s character is best understood in terms of Aquinas’s understanding of magnanimity or greatness of soul, the crowning virtue of statesmanship. True political greatness, as embodied by Lincoln, involves both humility and sacrificial service for the common good. The enduring wisdom and timeless teachings of these great thinkers, Fornieri shows, can lead to a deeper appreciation of statesmanship and of its embodiment in Abraham Lincoln. With the great philosophers and books of western civilization as his guide, Fornieri demonstrates the important contribution of normative political philosophy to an understanding of our sixteenth president. Informed by political theory that draws on the classics in revealing the timelessness of Lincoln’s example, his interdisciplinary study offers profound insights for anyone interested in the nature of leadership, statesmanship, political philosophy, political ethics, political history, and constitutional law.

Author : Joseph R. Fornieri
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1596980958
Total Pages : 1146 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Language of Liberty written by Joseph R. Fornieri and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-01-11 with total page 1146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War is a defining event in American history and Abraham Lincoln is the central figure of both the Civil War and American history. In his struggle to preserve the Union and redeem the nation from the original sin of slavery, Abraham Lincoln provided the most compelling expression of the American Dream and the preeminent justification of the American regime. Indeed, at Gettysburg he distilled the very essence of the nation's political creed. His political thought and leadership are of enduring significance to democracy at home and abroad. To further appreciate and perpetuate Lincoln's legacy, The Language of Liberty offers the definitive one-volume collection of the Sixteenth President's speeches and writings. Unlike so many other collections, in which Lincoln's speeches and writings have been substantially edited, this volume provides a comprehensive selection of the Sixteenth President's most important speeches and writings in their entirety. The volume is conveniently divided both chronologically and thematically into five periods/chapters from 1832-1865. A final chapter offers a compilation of Lincoln's speeches and writings on the theme of religion and politics. Each speech is preceded by an informative head-note, which places Lincoln's words in context for the reader. In addition, each period/chapter includes a concise historical, political, and biographical overview of the major events in Lincoln's life and the life of the nation, thereby providing an even wider context for understanding the Sixteenth President's language of liberty. To assist the reader, crucial terms, dates, events and issues of the Civil War have been defined. Also unique to this volume is the final section on Lincoln's Political Faith, which includes an offering of his public and private utterances on religion, and a definition of this political faith based upon the first principles of the Declaration of Independence. A selected bibliography of secondary sources has been included for further reading on various topics related to the Sixteenth President. Finally, the volume includes an extensive introduction on Lincoln's Prudent Leadership and his application of the natural law to the circumstances of the Civil War Era. Indeed, this introduction provides a crucial understanding of the relationship between Lincoln's political thought and political action, between the world of theory and practice. In sum, The Language of Liberty provides an indispensable guide to the lay reader, the Lincoln aficionado, and the scholar. All now have access to a single volume collection of his great political speeches and writings with unedited versions, concise historical overviews, and scholarly reflections on the enduring significance of Lincoln's political philosophy.

Author : Grant N. Havers
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
ISBN 13 : 0826272061
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love written by Grant N. Havers and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2009-11-13 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America has seen faith-based initiatives and “the audacity of hope” in twenty-first-century politics, but few participants in our political scene have invoked the other Christian virtue of charity as a guiding principle. Abraham Lincoln extolled the merit of “loving thy neighbor as thyself,” especially as a critique of the hypocrisy of slavery, but a discussion of Christian love is noticeably absent from today’s debates about religion and democracy. In this provocative book, Grant Havers argues that charity is a central tenet of what Lincoln once called America’s “political religion.” He explores the implications of making Christian love the highest moral standard for American democracy, showing how Lincoln’s legacy demands that a true democracy be charitable toward all—and that only a people who lived according to such ideals could succeed in building democracy as Lincoln understood it. Havers argues that it is simplistic to conflate Lincoln’s invocation of “with charity for all” with his abiding support for the ideal of human equality. The ethic of charity in his view also brought a uniquely Christian realism to the universalism of democracy. He also describes how, since World War I, intellectuals and political leaders have denied that there exists a necessary relation between democracy and Christian love, proposing that democracy is sufficiently ethical without reliance on a specific religious tradition. Today’s neoconservatives and liberals instead posit a universal yearning for democracy that requires no foundation in the ethic of charity. Havers shows that this democratic universalism, espoused by those who believe a “chosen people” should uphold the natural rights of humanity, is alien to the sober thought of both the founders and Lincoln. This carefully argued work defends Lincoln’s understanding of charity as essential to democracy while emphasizing the difficulty of fusing this ethic with the desire to spread democracy to people who do not share America’s Christian heritage. In considering the prospect of America’s leaders rediscovering a moral foreign policy based on charity rather than the costly idolization of democracy, Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love makes a timely contribution to the wider debate over both the meaning of religion in American politics and the mission of America in the world—and opens a new window on Lincoln’s lasting legacy.