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The Presidency and the Power of Words
Knopf
November 2006
On Sale: November 14, 2006
352 pages
ISBN: 1400040396
EAN: 9781400040391
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
Abraham Lincoln now occupies an unparalleled place in
American history, but when he was first elected president, a
skeptical writer asked, “Who will write this ignorant man’s
state papers?” Literary ability was, indeed, the last thing
the public expected from the folksy, self-educated
“rail-splitter,” but the forceful qualities of Lincoln’s
writing eventually surprised his supporters and confounded
his many critics. Since his assassination in 1865, no
American’s words have become more familiar or more admired,
and their enduring power has established him as one of our
greatest writers. Now, in a groundbreaking study, the
distinguished Lincoln scholar Douglas L. Wilson demonstrates
that exploring Lincoln’s presidential writing provides a
window onto his presidency and a key to his accomplishments. Lincoln’s Sword tells the story of how Lincoln developed his
writing skills, how they served him for a time as a hidden
presidential asset, how it gradually became clear that he
possessed a formidable literary talent, and it reveals how
writing came to play an increasingly important role in his
presidency. “By the time he came to write the Gettysburg
Address,” Wilson says, “Lincoln was attempting to help put
the horrific carnage of the Civil War in a positive light,
and at the same time to do it in a way that would have
constructive implications for the future. By the time he
came to write the Second Inaugural Address, fifteen months
later, he was quite consciously in the business of
interpreting the war and its deeper meaning, not just for
his contemporaries but for what he elsewhere called the
‘vast future.’ ” Illustrated with reproductions of Lincoln’s original
manuscripts, Lincoln’s Sword affords an unprecedented look
at a distinctively American writer.
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