Abraham Lincoln the Orator: Penetrating the Lincoln Legend (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS25 1 icans as they sought to gain their preferences or to treat them within a sectional focus that is not always applicable. Still, Greenstone has issued an original and powerful challenge to scholars of American thought and practice and provided a compelling framework for further explorations of similar imagination. Joel H. Silbey Cornell University The Shadows Rise: Abraham Lincoln and the Ann Rutledge Legend. By John Evangelist Walsh. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Pp. x, 187. $25.95.) Following the lead of scholars John Y. Simon and Douglas Wilson, Mr. Walsh, a former publishing executive who has written a dozen books, argues that the Ann Rutledge legend is not a legend but a historical fact. To ignore it would be to overlook an event that critically shaped Abraham Lincoln's personality, he would say. Mr. Walsh nimbly lays out the evidence, most of it from the oral narratives recorded by Lincoln's law partner William H. Herndon. He has no significant new evidence but believes that the record long available has been slighted by professional historians (before Simon and Wilson). In arguing from the evidence and in speculating on Lincoln's psychological state, Mr. Walsh is somewhat heavy handed. Moreover, he confines his history to the narrowest focus possible and makes no effort to inform his narrative with insights from women's history, social history, folklore, political history, or medical history—all of which might be brought to bear usefully. As an informative enterprise, Jean Baker's Mary Todd Lincoln, which she describes as "biography as social history," offers much more than this singleminded little book. Though a slow reader, I finished the book in an afternoon—a tribute to the author's gifts as a writer. But readers of Civil War History could spend their afternoons more profitably, delving into the more significant parts of Lincoln 's life: his career in the Whig party, his role in the Republican party, and his presidential administration. Mark E. Neely, Jr. St. Louis University Abraham Lincoln the Orator: Penetrating the Lincoln Legend. By Lois J. Einhorn . (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992. Pp. xx, 225. $45.00.) This beautifully crafted book is the sixteenth volume in a series on Great American Orators. In this study of Lincoln as an orator, Lois J. Einhorn has divided her work into two parts. The first part seeks to analyze the rhetoric of Lincoln. The second part consists of nine selected Lincoln speeches 252CIVIL WAR HISTORY beginning with the "Lyceum Address" ofJanuary 27, 1838, and ending with the "Second Inaugural Address" of March 4, 1865. According to Einhorn, it was Lincoln's rhetorical skills that brought him fame and catapulted him into the White House. To support that thesis, Einhorn quotes Henry Clay Whitney, a lawyer who rode the circuit with Lincoln in Illinois. Whitney claimed that Lincoln's rise to the presidency "was achieved entirely by oratory . He held no office; had no position where he could act; had no publication in which to air his views; no way to reach the public except by speeches" (xvii). From her background in rhetoric, Einhorn shares with her readers what Lincoln thought to be the most important aspects of his public speaking: speaking from conviction, having the listeners' best interests at heart, keeping passion under the control of reason, the careful choice of words, the use of stories and analogies to clarify and persuade, stating ideas clearly and concisely , and diligent preparation. Einhorn observes that "when Lincoln assumed the presidency, his speaking changed in significant and noticeable ways." For one thing, as president, his public speeches were less in number and shorter in length. More importantly , however, Lincoln's style moved from oratorical before his presidency to literary after assuming office. "Perhaps," writes Einhorn, "Lincoln found the best combination: successful speeches early in life that rocketed him to national power and more literary speeches later in life through which he continues to speak" (42). As an example, Einhorn points to the "Gettysburg Address ," which was not considered a great speech at the time of its delivery. "Paradoxically," says Einhorn, "had Lincoln made the type of changes that might have made the 'Gettysburg Address' a great...