Lincoln
July 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. In his speech Douglas sounded the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and
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February 12, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Abraham Lincoln stands not only as America’s greatest president but also as its greatest lawyer. At the time of his election to the presidency in 1860 he was the most prominent practicing lawyer in the state of Illinois. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom
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February 12, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Today is of course the anniversary of the birth of America’s great or greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all
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December 19, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I have a happy memory of taking my two youngest daughters to hear Andrew Ferguson read from his then new book Land of Lincoln at Magers & Quinn Booksellers in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis back in June 2007. Andy greeted us warmly and we all greatly enjoyed the reading. (To that happy memory I can join the current observation that Magers & Quinn is with us yet. It is
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August 18, 2022 — Scott Johnson
In the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll (revised 1980 edition), Janet Maslin wrote the chapter on Bob Dylan. She included the photo of the folkie Dylan posing with a cigarette dangling from his lips and a guitar in his lap. Maslin supplied the caption: “The conscience of a generation, trying to smoke and sing simultaneously.” (The photo is accessible here.) Liz Cheney followed in Dylan’s footsteps with
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July 4, 2022 — Scott Johnson
On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. In his speech Douglas sounded the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and
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March 22, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Tucker Carlson has served a valuable service in giving voice to qualms that should ruffle the political consensus that has driven our support of Ukraine. He seeks to highlight uncomfortable facts that should belie the uniparty consensus, or at least make it more thoughtful. Last night he devoted his opening monologue — “Everybody is lying” (video) — to denouncing Ukraine President Zelensky as a tyrant. Tucker’s monologue was predicated on
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February 20, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Barton Swaim commends three new books in the popular history mode on Lincoln — by Brian Kilmeade, Brad Meltzer and John Avlon — in the Wall Street Journal’s Review section this weekend. Swaim recounts this anecdote lifted from John Avlon’s Lincoln and the Fight For Peace, with which Swaim concludes his review: On April 8, 1865, Lincoln visited Gen. Grant’s headquarters near Richmond and consoled wounded Union soldiers in a
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February 12, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Abraham Lincoln stands not only as America’s greatest president but also as its greatest lawyer. At the time of his election to the presidency in 1860 he was the most prominent practicing lawyer in the state of Illinois. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom
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February 12, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Today is of course the anniversary of the birth of America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are
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July 4, 2021 — Scott Johnson
On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. In his speech Douglas sounded the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and
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April 24, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Sean Wilentz is a historian of the leftist persuasion and also a principled opponent of the New York Times’s 1619 Project errors, distortions, and lies (my word, not his), now adopted as the orthodoxy of the Democratic Party. The problem is “A matter of facts,” he wrote in The Atlantic. He also signed off on the letter prominent historians sent to the Times challenging the project as ideological rather than
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April 22, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The relationship between the former slave Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln provides deep insight into both men. Douglass’s recollection of his first meeting with Lincoln — “I shall never forget my first interview with this great man” — is a highlight of the 1892 version of Douglass’s autobiography (The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass). In the Claremont Review of Books celebration of the bicentennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth
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February 12, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Abraham Lincoln stands not only as America’s greatest president but also as its greatest lawyer. At the time of his election to the presidency in 1860 he was the most prominent practicing lawyer in the state of Illinois. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom
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February 12, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Today is of course the anniversary of the birth of America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are
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January 13, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The left in all its manifestations wrongly dismisses the right’s critique of its condemnation of the Capitol riot as “whataboutism.” William Voegeli has contributed the definitive analysis and takedown of the left’s condemnation in the City Journal essay “About ‘whataboutism.'” (Jewish World Review has reposted Bill’s column here.) Voegeli harshly makes out the bad faith of the left. Beyond the bad faith of the left, however, we need to understand
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September 2, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Our friend Jean Yarbrough is the Gary M. Pendy Sr. Professor of Social Sciences and Professor of Government at Bowdoin College and the author, most recently, of Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition, 2013 winner of the American Political Science Association’s Richard E. Neustadt Prize for the best book on the American presidency. If you have ever wondered what we are to make of Theodore Roosevelt, Professor Yarbrough’s book
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