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Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution
James McPherson has emerged as one of America's finest historians. Battle Cry of Freedom , his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times Book Review , called "history writing of the highest order." In that volume, McPherson gathered in the broad sweep of events, the political, social, and cultural forces at work during the Civil War era. Now, in Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution , he offers a series of thoughtful and engaging essays on aspects of Lincoln and the war that have rarely been discussed in depth.
McPherson again displays his keen insight and sterling prose as he examines several critical themes in American history. He looks closely at the President's role as Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, showing how Lincoln forged a national military strategy for victory. He explores the importance of Lincoln's great rhetorical skills, uncovering how--through parables and figurative language--he was uniquely able to communicate both the purpose of the war and a new meaning of liberty to the people of the North. In another section, McPherson examines the Civil War as a Second American Revolution, describing how the Republican Congress elected in 1860 passed an astonishing blitz of new laws (rivaling the first hundred days of the New Deal), and how the war not only destroyed the social structure of the old South, but radically altered the balance of power in America, ending 70 years of Southern power in the national government.
The Civil War was the single most transforming and defining experience in American history, and Abraham Lincoln remains the most important figure in the pantheon of our mythology. These graceful essays, written by one of America's leading historians, offer fresh and unusual perspectives on both.
McPherson again displays his keen insight and sterling prose as he examines several critical themes in American history. He looks closely at the President's role as Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, showing how Lincoln forged a national military strategy for victory. He explores the importance of Lincoln's great rhetorical skills, uncovering how--through parables and figurative language--he was uniquely able to communicate both the purpose of the war and a new meaning of liberty to the people of the North. In another section, McPherson examines the Civil War as a Second American Revolution, describing how the Republican Congress elected in 1860 passed an astonishing blitz of new laws (rivaling the first hundred days of the New Deal), and how the war not only destroyed the social structure of the old South, but radically altered the balance of power in America, ending 70 years of Southern power in the national government.
The Civil War was the single most transforming and defining experience in American history, and Abraham Lincoln remains the most important figure in the pantheon of our mythology. These graceful essays, written by one of America's leading historians, offer fresh and unusual perspectives on both.
192 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1983
About the author
James M. McPherson
175 books735 followersJames M. McPherson, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University, 1963; B.A., Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, Minnesota), 1958) is an American Civil War historian, and the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, his most famous book. He was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003, and is a member of the editorial board of Encyclopædia Britannica.
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February 16, 2026
How Lincoln Transformed America
Books on Abraham Lincoln and on the Civil War abound, but few books explore their significance with the eloquence and erudition of Professor McPherson's "Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution." This book is a compilation of seven essays which discuss the transformations the Civil War brought to the character of the United States and the indispensable role Lincoln played in bringing these transformations about.
In these essays, Professor McPherson explains that the changes the Civil War brought about can be summarized in two words: Nation and Liberty. First, The Civil War transformed a Union of States into a single Nation. This change is exemplified in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. As Professor McPherson points out in the preface to his essays, in the Gettysburg Address Lincoln spoke of the American "nation" rather than of a "union" in order "to invoke a new birth of American Freedom and nationhood." (p. vii)
Second, the change of America from a union of states to a nation was accompanied by a change in the concept of liberty on which the nation was founded. In a word, this change involved emancipation, the abolition of slavery, and the application to all people of the principle articulated in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal". In several essays, Professor McPherson uses the work of the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin to develop a distinction between negative and positive liberty. Before the Civil War, liberty was understood primarily in a negative way which involved individual freedom from government regulation and freedom from interference with private property. With the Civil War, the concept of liberty changed to allow the Federal government to assume a positive role in promoting human freedom and human good. The most striking example, of course, is the abolition of slavery. But the concept of the government's role in creating a positive concept of liberty has continued.
Professor McPherson's essays show how Lincoln unified the ideals of Nationhood and Liberty as the Civil War progressed and thus effected a revolution in the basic nature of the United States. The essays explore these basic themes masterfully as Professor McPherson discusses Lincoln's political skills, his insistence on the unconditional surrender of the South, the development of Lincoln's ideas on emancipation, the significance to the second American Revolution of Lincoln's eloquence as a speaker and a writer, and much else.
Professor McPherson also discusses the Reconstruction period in a thoughtful way. He takes issue, in part with modern revisionists who claim that the Civil War failed in its basic aims by the backtracking from Reconstruction and by the reinstitution of Jim Crow that occurred following 1876. A "second reconstruction" proved necessary in the mid-20th Century to realize fully the aims of the first. But this does not derogate, Professor McPherson argues, the significance of the Revolution that was wrought by Lincoln and the Civil War.
This book will help the reader to think about Abraham Lincoln and to understand why the Civil War remains the pivotal event in our Nation's history.
Robin Friedman
Books on Abraham Lincoln and on the Civil War abound, but few books explore their significance with the eloquence and erudition of Professor McPherson's "Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution." This book is a compilation of seven essays which discuss the transformations the Civil War brought to the character of the United States and the indispensable role Lincoln played in bringing these transformations about.
In these essays, Professor McPherson explains that the changes the Civil War brought about can be summarized in two words: Nation and Liberty. First, The Civil War transformed a Union of States into a single Nation. This change is exemplified in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. As Professor McPherson points out in the preface to his essays, in the Gettysburg Address Lincoln spoke of the American "nation" rather than of a "union" in order "to invoke a new birth of American Freedom and nationhood." (p. vii)
Second, the change of America from a union of states to a nation was accompanied by a change in the concept of liberty on which the nation was founded. In a word, this change involved emancipation, the abolition of slavery, and the application to all people of the principle articulated in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal". In several essays, Professor McPherson uses the work of the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin to develop a distinction between negative and positive liberty. Before the Civil War, liberty was understood primarily in a negative way which involved individual freedom from government regulation and freedom from interference with private property. With the Civil War, the concept of liberty changed to allow the Federal government to assume a positive role in promoting human freedom and human good. The most striking example, of course, is the abolition of slavery. But the concept of the government's role in creating a positive concept of liberty has continued.
Professor McPherson's essays show how Lincoln unified the ideals of Nationhood and Liberty as the Civil War progressed and thus effected a revolution in the basic nature of the United States. The essays explore these basic themes masterfully as Professor McPherson discusses Lincoln's political skills, his insistence on the unconditional surrender of the South, the development of Lincoln's ideas on emancipation, the significance to the second American Revolution of Lincoln's eloquence as a speaker and a writer, and much else.
Professor McPherson also discusses the Reconstruction period in a thoughtful way. He takes issue, in part with modern revisionists who claim that the Civil War failed in its basic aims by the backtracking from Reconstruction and by the reinstitution of Jim Crow that occurred following 1876. A "second reconstruction" proved necessary in the mid-20th Century to realize fully the aims of the first. But this does not derogate, Professor McPherson argues, the significance of the Revolution that was wrought by Lincoln and the Civil War.
This book will help the reader to think about Abraham Lincoln and to understand why the Civil War remains the pivotal event in our Nation's history.
Robin Friedman
February 12, 2025
Abraham Lincoln’s leadership helped turn the American Civil War into a Second American Revolution, moving the United States of America closer to realization of the principle of “all men are created equal” that was set forth at the beginning of the original American Revolution in 1776 – or, to put it another way, four score and seven years before Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. That thematic idea links the essays brought together by James McPherson for his 1990 book Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution.
For readers of Civil War history, James McPherson needs no introduction. His Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988) is widely considered the definitive one-volume history of that era, expertly melding details of battlefield combat with attention to the social and cultural history of that time, particularly with regard to slavery and emancipation. He is, for these times, what Bruce Catton was for an earlier time – the go-to Civil War historian, with enduring appeal to both scholars and general readers.
Readers of Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution should not expect a lengthy, sweeping overall history on the order of Battle Cry of Freedom. Rather, this book consists of a series of essays that were originally lectures, book chapters, or scholarly articles. What they have in common, as the book’s title indicates, is a focus on Abraham Lincoln as a war leader who fulfilled many of the promises of the original American Revolution, eight decades after that first revolution ended.
The title essay suggests that the much-remarked-upon “contradiction” between Lincoln the conservative and Lincoln the revolutionary is actually “a matter of interpretation and emphasis within the context of a fluid and rapidly changing crisis situation. The Civil War started out as one kind of conflict and ended as something quite different. These apparently contradictory positions about Lincoln the conservative versus Lincoln the revolutionary can be reconciled by focusing on this process” (p. 25).
In Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson sets forth his belief in a contingency theory of history – the idea that history is driven by what happens at critical moments of change, as when the Confederate invasions of Maryland and Kentucky were turned back in the autumn of 1862, enabling President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln’s movement toward emancipation could be said to have occurred in accordance with that process – one contingent moment leading to another, until what had officially begun as a limited war to restore the Union evolved into a much more revolutionary war that ended American slavery forever.
The essay “Lincoln and Liberty” points out that “Lincoln rejected the notion that the rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness were confined to the white race” – even if “the abolitionists and the radical wing of the Republican party went further than Lincoln in maintaining the principle of equal rights for all people” (p. 51). This belief on Lincoln’s part, with its limitations, found practical expression during the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, when Lincoln responded to Douglas’s expression of white-supremacist beliefs by stating that “I agree with Judge Douglas [that the black man] is not my equal in many respects”, but followed that up by insisting forthrightly that “in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man” (qtd. p. 52).
In “Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender,” McPherson considers Lincoln’s insistence, throughout the Civil War, that the war “was a domestic insurrection by certain lawless citizens, not a war between nations. Throughout the war Lincoln maintained this legal fiction; he never referred to Confederate states or to Confederates, but to rebel states and rebels” (p. 75). The language that Lincoln used in his proclamation of April 15, 1861, in which he stated that he was calling out 75,000 militia to “suppress…combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings” (qtd. p. 74), emphasizes Lincoln’s view that the Civil War was to be a “limited war – very limited, indeed scarcely war at all, but a police action to quell a rather large riot” (p. 75).
The essay “How Lincoln Won the War with Metaphors” looks at how Lincoln used vivid, figurative language, including many animal metaphors expressive of Lincoln’s upbringing in the rural Midwest. This use of metaphor, in McPherson’s reading, not only displays the poetic side of Lincoln’s meaning-making imagination, but also shows the extent to which his thinking was in advance of so many of his contemporaries, both political and military – as with Lincoln’s advice to Union General Joseph Hooker in the summer of 1863, as Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was beginning the campaign of invasion that would end at Gettysburg:
As Lee began to move north, Hooker proposed to cross the Rappahannock River and attack his rear guard. Lincoln disapproved with these words in a telegram to Hooker: “I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other.” Napoleon himself could not have given better tactical advice or phrased it half so well. (pp. 100-01)
“The Hedgehog and the Foxes” takes its title from “a line by the Greek poet Archilochus: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’” (p. 113). For McPherson, Lincoln was surrounded by foxes – men who were too clever by half, but who risked losing sight of what was for Lincoln the “one big thing”: the principle that the Union, founded in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, had to be preserved in a manner that also preserved those founding principles.
The Declaration of Independence was the foundation of Lincoln’s political philosophy. “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration,” he said in 1861….These were the principles that for Lincoln made America stand for something unique and important in the world; they were the principles that the heroes of the Revolution, whom Lincoln revered, had fought and died for; without these principles, the United States would become just another oppressive autocracy. (p. 126)
It is for this reason that Lincoln, who despised slavery and believed that the phrase “all men are created equal” meant all people, regardless of color, nonetheless did not attempt to abolish slavery by judicial fiat; when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he did so in a strictly constitutional manner, as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces, undertaking a wartime measure that would weaken the slaveholding Confederacy. Thanks to Lincoln’s leadership, the United States emerged from the Civil War not only still united, not just more powerful, but also much more free.
And “Liberty and Power in the Second American Revolution” invokes philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s concepts of negative liberty and positive liberty:
“Negative liberty is freedom from interference by outside authority with individual thought or behavior. Positive liberty is freedom to achieve a status of freedom previously denied by disability or law. Negative liberty is vulnerable to power; positive liberty is a form of power” (p. 137).
McPherson applies Berlin’s ideas to suggest that the pre-war U.S.A. was a nation with a culture of negative liberty – “I’m a free American” meant, in effect, “The government can’t tell me what to do.” Most constitutional amendments, before the Civil War, set forth what the federal government could not do. The pressures of war, by contrast, gradually moved the U.S.A. in the direction of positive liberty, with a more powerful and activist government that, by war’s end, was able to pass Constitutional amendments stating what the federal government could do – in the case of the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery forever – with the specification that “Congress shall have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation.”
Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution is not a biography of Lincoln; rather, it is a multi-part consideration of Lincoln’s philosophy with regard to the powers of government and the rights of the citizen. Read in that spirit, it provides a helpful look at Lincoln’s ideas and their considerable impact, both in the United States and worldwide.
For readers of Civil War history, James McPherson needs no introduction. His Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988) is widely considered the definitive one-volume history of that era, expertly melding details of battlefield combat with attention to the social and cultural history of that time, particularly with regard to slavery and emancipation. He is, for these times, what Bruce Catton was for an earlier time – the go-to Civil War historian, with enduring appeal to both scholars and general readers.
Readers of Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution should not expect a lengthy, sweeping overall history on the order of Battle Cry of Freedom. Rather, this book consists of a series of essays that were originally lectures, book chapters, or scholarly articles. What they have in common, as the book’s title indicates, is a focus on Abraham Lincoln as a war leader who fulfilled many of the promises of the original American Revolution, eight decades after that first revolution ended.
The title essay suggests that the much-remarked-upon “contradiction” between Lincoln the conservative and Lincoln the revolutionary is actually “a matter of interpretation and emphasis within the context of a fluid and rapidly changing crisis situation. The Civil War started out as one kind of conflict and ended as something quite different. These apparently contradictory positions about Lincoln the conservative versus Lincoln the revolutionary can be reconciled by focusing on this process” (p. 25).
In Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson sets forth his belief in a contingency theory of history – the idea that history is driven by what happens at critical moments of change, as when the Confederate invasions of Maryland and Kentucky were turned back in the autumn of 1862, enabling President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln’s movement toward emancipation could be said to have occurred in accordance with that process – one contingent moment leading to another, until what had officially begun as a limited war to restore the Union evolved into a much more revolutionary war that ended American slavery forever.
The essay “Lincoln and Liberty” points out that “Lincoln rejected the notion that the rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness were confined to the white race” – even if “the abolitionists and the radical wing of the Republican party went further than Lincoln in maintaining the principle of equal rights for all people” (p. 51). This belief on Lincoln’s part, with its limitations, found practical expression during the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, when Lincoln responded to Douglas’s expression of white-supremacist beliefs by stating that “I agree with Judge Douglas [that the black man] is not my equal in many respects”, but followed that up by insisting forthrightly that “in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man” (qtd. p. 52).
In “Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender,” McPherson considers Lincoln’s insistence, throughout the Civil War, that the war “was a domestic insurrection by certain lawless citizens, not a war between nations. Throughout the war Lincoln maintained this legal fiction; he never referred to Confederate states or to Confederates, but to rebel states and rebels” (p. 75). The language that Lincoln used in his proclamation of April 15, 1861, in which he stated that he was calling out 75,000 militia to “suppress…combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings” (qtd. p. 74), emphasizes Lincoln’s view that the Civil War was to be a “limited war – very limited, indeed scarcely war at all, but a police action to quell a rather large riot” (p. 75).
The essay “How Lincoln Won the War with Metaphors” looks at how Lincoln used vivid, figurative language, including many animal metaphors expressive of Lincoln’s upbringing in the rural Midwest. This use of metaphor, in McPherson’s reading, not only displays the poetic side of Lincoln’s meaning-making imagination, but also shows the extent to which his thinking was in advance of so many of his contemporaries, both political and military – as with Lincoln’s advice to Union General Joseph Hooker in the summer of 1863, as Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was beginning the campaign of invasion that would end at Gettysburg:
As Lee began to move north, Hooker proposed to cross the Rappahannock River and attack his rear guard. Lincoln disapproved with these words in a telegram to Hooker: “I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other.” Napoleon himself could not have given better tactical advice or phrased it half so well. (pp. 100-01)
“The Hedgehog and the Foxes” takes its title from “a line by the Greek poet Archilochus: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’” (p. 113). For McPherson, Lincoln was surrounded by foxes – men who were too clever by half, but who risked losing sight of what was for Lincoln the “one big thing”: the principle that the Union, founded in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, had to be preserved in a manner that also preserved those founding principles.
The Declaration of Independence was the foundation of Lincoln’s political philosophy. “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration,” he said in 1861….These were the principles that for Lincoln made America stand for something unique and important in the world; they were the principles that the heroes of the Revolution, whom Lincoln revered, had fought and died for; without these principles, the United States would become just another oppressive autocracy. (p. 126)
It is for this reason that Lincoln, who despised slavery and believed that the phrase “all men are created equal” meant all people, regardless of color, nonetheless did not attempt to abolish slavery by judicial fiat; when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he did so in a strictly constitutional manner, as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces, undertaking a wartime measure that would weaken the slaveholding Confederacy. Thanks to Lincoln’s leadership, the United States emerged from the Civil War not only still united, not just more powerful, but also much more free.
And “Liberty and Power in the Second American Revolution” invokes philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s concepts of negative liberty and positive liberty:
“Negative liberty is freedom from interference by outside authority with individual thought or behavior. Positive liberty is freedom to achieve a status of freedom previously denied by disability or law. Negative liberty is vulnerable to power; positive liberty is a form of power” (p. 137).
McPherson applies Berlin’s ideas to suggest that the pre-war U.S.A. was a nation with a culture of negative liberty – “I’m a free American” meant, in effect, “The government can’t tell me what to do.” Most constitutional amendments, before the Civil War, set forth what the federal government could not do. The pressures of war, by contrast, gradually moved the U.S.A. in the direction of positive liberty, with a more powerful and activist government that, by war’s end, was able to pass Constitutional amendments stating what the federal government could do – in the case of the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery forever – with the specification that “Congress shall have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation.”
Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution is not a biography of Lincoln; rather, it is a multi-part consideration of Lincoln’s philosophy with regard to the powers of government and the rights of the citizen. Read in that spirit, it provides a helpful look at Lincoln’s ideas and their considerable impact, both in the United States and worldwide.
March 27, 2007
Lincoln the Revolutionary, Lincoln the Crusader, the Visonary-- this collection of essays addresses a side of Lincoln that is largely overlooked while slapping down the Neo-Confederate Revisonists.
Those who tout the Myth of The Confederacy As Heirs to 1776 ( a popular fable here in the Commonwealth) will read this book and shrilly denonounce it. They will have however have to marshall something more than the "Standing up For Their Rights) argument as McPherson allows the words of the Confederates to speak for themselves.
More importantly, he strips away the mythology surrounding Lincoln's actions and his goals and assesses them for what they were: the logical progression of the Revolutions of 1776 and 1787 (if you find that reference puzzling- come see me. Bring Bourbon)- at once a revolution that overthrew the existing social and political order, and a fulfillment of the earlier Revolution's philosophical goals.
I used to assign this book as required reading in my American History classes.
Go read it and find out why.
Those who tout the Myth of The Confederacy As Heirs to 1776 ( a popular fable here in the Commonwealth) will read this book and shrilly denonounce it. They will have however have to marshall something more than the "Standing up For Their Rights) argument as McPherson allows the words of the Confederates to speak for themselves.
More importantly, he strips away the mythology surrounding Lincoln's actions and his goals and assesses them for what they were: the logical progression of the Revolutions of 1776 and 1787 (if you find that reference puzzling- come see me. Bring Bourbon)- at once a revolution that overthrew the existing social and political order, and a fulfillment of the earlier Revolution's philosophical goals.
I used to assign this book as required reading in my American History classes.
Go read it and find out why.
July 9, 2010
Incredibly readable and concise collection of McPherson lectures from an AP US History class in high school. Some interesting points include:
- How the Civil War was more revolutionary than the original American revolution of 1776 (abolition of slavery, destruction and mass redistribution of "wealth", strengthening of the power of the federal government, etc)
- Lincoln's grand strategies for winning the war, as opposed to specific operational / military strategies
- The evolution of said national strategies during the early years of the war (ie: limited war vs "total war" for unconditional surrender, supporting the status quo on slavery vs the later Emancipation Proclamation, etc)
- Lincoln's rhetoric
My only real criticism would be that as 7 stand-alone chapters, the book features more than a small amount of redundancy in the primary source material quoted.
- How the Civil War was more revolutionary than the original American revolution of 1776 (abolition of slavery, destruction and mass redistribution of "wealth", strengthening of the power of the federal government, etc)
- Lincoln's grand strategies for winning the war, as opposed to specific operational / military strategies
- The evolution of said national strategies during the early years of the war (ie: limited war vs "total war" for unconditional surrender, supporting the status quo on slavery vs the later Emancipation Proclamation, etc)
- Lincoln's rhetoric
My only real criticism would be that as 7 stand-alone chapters, the book features more than a small amount of redundancy in the primary source material quoted.
December 18, 2024
This was a really nice collection of essays about Lincoln and the Civil War. If given the opportunity, I would rate this a 4.5.
The essays provided an interesting context for the semantics associated with the words used in Lincoln’s speeches as well as a description of how those worlds were actualized by Southern and Northern citizens.
Very enjoyable book. Useful for today’s political commentary.
The essays provided an interesting context for the semantics associated with the words used in Lincoln’s speeches as well as a description of how those worlds were actualized by Southern and Northern citizens.
Very enjoyable book. Useful for today’s political commentary.
September 12, 2024
I was on the fence about whether to give this three of four stars. I have a lot of disagreement with McPherson on how he reads the development of the constitution--he clearly doesnt like anyone who has doubts about the federal government creating the conditions for positive liberty--but he gets his point across really well. The essays are sparkling reads and its hard to argue with his central thesis. Abraham Lincoln enacted a political revolution.
May 21, 2012
The challenge facing any author who wants to write about Abraham Lincoln is finding a way to say something new. In Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, historian James McPherson meets that challenge quite well. By the time this book was published in the early 1990's, McPherson had already published Battle Cry of Freedom, a bestseller and Pulitzer Prize winner. Battle Cry of Freedom is still widely regarded as this generation's definitive single-volume history of the Civil War, and perhaps this book's appearance a short time later reflects a public demand for more of McPherson's work. Whatever the reasons for its publication, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution makes a valuable contribution to Lincoln studies and to Civil War studies generally.
It is not, mind you, a comprehensive Civil War history on the order of Battle Cry. Rather, it is a collection of seven essays, delivered and published in various scholarly venues between 1982 and 1991; and while McPherson assures us that he has worked to eliminate overlap among the essays, you will see a couple of quotes appearing multiple times. The common denominator that the essays share, an important one, is that all focus on Lincoln as war leader, and on the Civil War as a second American Revolution -- a conflict that, in bringing an end to slavery, fulfilled the promises of American liberty that had been set forth in the original American Revolution, four score and seven-odd years earlier.
The essays deal with topics such as Lincoln's leadership style, his beliefs regarding liberty, his strategy of compelling an unconditional Confederate surrender, and the way in which Lincoln's gift for language contributed to his political success. Two of the essays, "Lincoln and Liberty" and "Liberty and Power in the Second American Revolution," seem particularly applicable to the controversies of modern American life. More than once, McPherson invokes the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin's writings on negative liberty ("freedom from") and positive liberty ("freedom to") as he discusses the way in which American views on liberty changed during the Civil War era.
McPherson's writing style, as always, is mellifluous; his presentation of his evidence is meticulous; his arguments are persuasive. If you enjoy McPherson's works of Civil War history, you will enjoy Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution.
It is not, mind you, a comprehensive Civil War history on the order of Battle Cry. Rather, it is a collection of seven essays, delivered and published in various scholarly venues between 1982 and 1991; and while McPherson assures us that he has worked to eliminate overlap among the essays, you will see a couple of quotes appearing multiple times. The common denominator that the essays share, an important one, is that all focus on Lincoln as war leader, and on the Civil War as a second American Revolution -- a conflict that, in bringing an end to slavery, fulfilled the promises of American liberty that had been set forth in the original American Revolution, four score and seven-odd years earlier.
The essays deal with topics such as Lincoln's leadership style, his beliefs regarding liberty, his strategy of compelling an unconditional Confederate surrender, and the way in which Lincoln's gift for language contributed to his political success. Two of the essays, "Lincoln and Liberty" and "Liberty and Power in the Second American Revolution," seem particularly applicable to the controversies of modern American life. More than once, McPherson invokes the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin's writings on negative liberty ("freedom from") and positive liberty ("freedom to") as he discusses the way in which American views on liberty changed during the Civil War era.
McPherson's writing style, as always, is mellifluous; his presentation of his evidence is meticulous; his arguments are persuasive. If you enjoy McPherson's works of Civil War history, you will enjoy Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution.
January 6, 2021
As the author points out, prior to the Civil War most people, including staunch Unionists, treated the term "United States" as a plural noun, as in "the United States are . . . ." During the war, it became more common to use this term as a singular, as in "the United States is . . . ." This small change in speech reflected a major change in how Americans viewed their country.
This book includes seven essays discussing the Union's gradually increasing war objectives, and with it the increase in the federal government's power at the expense of the states that took place during the war and immediately afterward. It sometimes is claimed these changes showed a national consensus in favor of a large federal government able to intrude into every corner of American life. That is not so; the post-Civil War Amendments to the Constitution were limited to restricting state action rather than authorizing any regulation of the acts of private persons, and the members of the Civil War generation would be aghast at the far-reaching power the federal government has seized since the 1930s. This fact, however, does not limit the interest of McPherson's book, which is well worth reading.
This book includes seven essays discussing the Union's gradually increasing war objectives, and with it the increase in the federal government's power at the expense of the states that took place during the war and immediately afterward. It sometimes is claimed these changes showed a national consensus in favor of a large federal government able to intrude into every corner of American life. That is not so; the post-Civil War Amendments to the Constitution were limited to restricting state action rather than authorizing any regulation of the acts of private persons, and the members of the Civil War generation would be aghast at the far-reaching power the federal government has seized since the 1930s. This fact, however, does not limit the interest of McPherson's book, which is well worth reading.
December 23, 2012
Read this book For my Book Analysis in History - I am biased towards President Lincoln so this book could do no wrong and it was not the first book/ collection of essays that I have read on the subject. If you are interested in Civil War era History or Political Science this is a wonderful read its short may take you a couple days to a week(s) to read but offers not really an original but entertaining (no Vampires) look into the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War viewed as Americas Second Revolution.
May 18, 2015
This is by far the best writing I've seen on Lincoln: well written and argued, contentious yet convincing. The general theme of the seven essays, revised for inclusion here, is that Lincoln and his government created a second American revolution with profound impact which survived the 'counter-revolution' of the late 1870s. Most interesting to me was McPerson's restatement of I. Berlin's treatment of the concept of 'liberty', negative and positive.
May 6, 2025
Seven essays about the lasting impacts the Civil War had on America and how Abraham Lincoln oversaw and guided these changes. The author calls the war and its resulting changes to America "the Second American Revolution".
The essays are quite academic – definitely not easy reading, but they did enlighten me in several ways.
The essays are quite academic – definitely not easy reading, but they did enlighten me in several ways.
February 10, 2009
A wonderful analysis of the impact of Lincoln's presidency and decision making on American culture.
May 26, 2026
A concise but genuinely thought-provoking collection of seven essays examining the Civil War as a kind of “second American revolution.” The distinctions the book draws between negative and positive liberty were especially interesting, particularly in understanding both Lincoln’s project and the tensions that still define American politics today. The observation about the political dominance of the South prior to the Civil War was also illuminating—one of those things that somehow never fully clicked for me until seeing it laid out directly.
What I appreciated most, though, is that the book makes a convincing case that this “second revolution” was not simply opportunistic federal expansion or abstract moralizing, but a confrontation with a contradiction that had existed at the heart of the American experiment from the beginning. “All men are created equal” and chattel slavery could not coexist forever without eventually forcing some kind of reckoning. In that sense, the revolution was well-founded and likely inevitable.
What remains unresolved are the tensions unleashed afterward. The conflict between negative liberty (“leave me alone”) and positive liberty (“freedom requires certain conditions to exist”) still sits at the center of American political life, especially in arguments over federal power, civil rights, and what many people describe as “federal overreach.” The book does a good job showing that, in many ways, we are still living inside the consequences of that second American revolution.
What I appreciated most, though, is that the book makes a convincing case that this “second revolution” was not simply opportunistic federal expansion or abstract moralizing, but a confrontation with a contradiction that had existed at the heart of the American experiment from the beginning. “All men are created equal” and chattel slavery could not coexist forever without eventually forcing some kind of reckoning. In that sense, the revolution was well-founded and likely inevitable.
What remains unresolved are the tensions unleashed afterward. The conflict between negative liberty (“leave me alone”) and positive liberty (“freedom requires certain conditions to exist”) still sits at the center of American political life, especially in arguments over federal power, civil rights, and what many people describe as “federal overreach.” The book does a good job showing that, in many ways, we are still living inside the consequences of that second American revolution.
April 29, 2026
Highly informative and well-structured overview of Lincoln's Presidential career.
Boyhood is idolizing Abe Lincoln. Adolescence is rejecting Lincoln once you learn he's far from the ideologue you once thought him to be. Adulthood is recognizing politics crushes ideologues when it finds them, and real heroes (unlike fictional ones) fight themselves as much as they fight their enemies.
Lincoln did not undertake the Civil War to end slavery; as a poor white born in a slave state, he knew chattel slavery suppressed whites relentlessly, though not nearly as viciously as it oppressed blacks. He was a vocal and nuanced opponent of slavery. But he was also a thinker. He understood decoupling the South from slavery wouldn't be as easy as physically removing their chains. McPherson effectively explains why Lincoln "radicalized" over his career and why Emancipation sentiment became so inextricably linked to the war effort while only holding a fraction of public opinion just a few years before. Lincoln's mind serves as a good benchmark for the nation's; he was powerfully influenced by practical considerations, a wish for peace, a love of country, and the desire to do right by God and man. I would highly recommend this book. It doesn't contain the entirety of the Civil War narrative, but it constructs a framework by which we may interpret the zeitgeist around Emancipation.
Boyhood is idolizing Abe Lincoln. Adolescence is rejecting Lincoln once you learn he's far from the ideologue you once thought him to be. Adulthood is recognizing politics crushes ideologues when it finds them, and real heroes (unlike fictional ones) fight themselves as much as they fight their enemies.
Lincoln did not undertake the Civil War to end slavery; as a poor white born in a slave state, he knew chattel slavery suppressed whites relentlessly, though not nearly as viciously as it oppressed blacks. He was a vocal and nuanced opponent of slavery. But he was also a thinker. He understood decoupling the South from slavery wouldn't be as easy as physically removing their chains. McPherson effectively explains why Lincoln "radicalized" over his career and why Emancipation sentiment became so inextricably linked to the war effort while only holding a fraction of public opinion just a few years before. Lincoln's mind serves as a good benchmark for the nation's; he was powerfully influenced by practical considerations, a wish for peace, a love of country, and the desire to do right by God and man. I would highly recommend this book. It doesn't contain the entirety of the Civil War narrative, but it constructs a framework by which we may interpret the zeitgeist around Emancipation.
May 28, 2023
This book is a collection of seven essays on the Civil War. Originally, these essays were lecture notes. They are well written and thoughtful. The common theme is that the Civil War was a second revolution because it resulted in revolutionary transformations of the country and was accompanied by a counter-revolution a couple decades after Appomattox. Each essay covers a single premise and can be read separately.
Slavery divided the nation in 1787 and severed the nation in 1860. Many have said that the Civil War settled the key issue kicked down the road by the Constitutional Convention. Did the Civil War finish the Founders’ work or was it in and of itself revolutionary? Read Abraham Lincoln and The Second American Revolution and decide for yourself.
Ending slavery in the United States was horrendously difficult. It took a four year war with about 620,000 deaths. The politics were byzantine and the warfare brutal. Reunification was even more ferocious, and absent Lincoln, the backsliding undid much of the accomplishment.
In the end, I found this to be a sad book.
Slavery divided the nation in 1787 and severed the nation in 1860. Many have said that the Civil War settled the key issue kicked down the road by the Constitutional Convention. Did the Civil War finish the Founders’ work or was it in and of itself revolutionary? Read Abraham Lincoln and The Second American Revolution and decide for yourself.
Ending slavery in the United States was horrendously difficult. It took a four year war with about 620,000 deaths. The politics were byzantine and the warfare brutal. Reunification was even more ferocious, and absent Lincoln, the backsliding undid much of the accomplishment.
In the end, I found this to be a sad book.
January 1, 2018
McPherson has in this short book provided a density of thought-provoking information unsurpassed by other scholars. The book consists of seven essays drawn from presentations and lectures McPherson has given to a variety of organizations. Each delves in its own way into the question of whether the Civil War was a second American revolution. He examines what revolution means, the idea of counterrevolution, the competing concepts of liberty held in the North and South, and even Lincoln as a hedgehog surrounded by foxes. McPherson shows why he is considered one of the, if not the, expert on Civil War America.
This is actually the third time I've read this book. The first was soon after it was published in 1991. I then read it again in 2009, and now again as part of a book discussion group in the Lincoln Group of DC. Each time I've learned more.
This is actually the third time I've read this book. The first was soon after it was published in 1991. I then read it again in 2009, and now again as part of a book discussion group in the Lincoln Group of DC. Each time I've learned more.
March 24, 2020
Readable essays on the theme that people back then thought that the Civil War was a second American revolution, and that they were right. Mainly because it changed our republic by establishing the principle that America was not just a country for white people but for everybody. As imperfectly as racial equality was enforced as Reconstruction started to break down and well into the 20th century, at least the principle was established that the words of the Declaration of Independence applied to all Americans, regardless of color or previous condition of servitude, to use the words of one of the post-Civil War constitutional amendments. McPherson presents Lincoln as a single-minded fighter for the Union who found a way to during the war to harmonize his duty to uphold the Constitution with his personal belief that "if slavery isn't wrong, then nothing is wrong."
November 12, 2018
This is a lovely little book of essays. James McPherson, an preeminent Civl War historian, thinks aloud about the question, what was at stake in the Civil War? What was at stake in the fundamental character of America?
He finds the answer in Lincoln's political philosophy, his understanding of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, his rhetoric, and the decisions he made, prosecuting the war. The answer to "what was at stake?", then, tells us a lot about Lincoln, but also lays out a particular vision of America, and the American promise, and whether that promise even makes sense--a question Lincoln wrestled with.
Lincoln's vision of the promise of America is deeply realistic, and yet stubbornly hopeful, that I really appreciate it, in times like these.
He finds the answer in Lincoln's political philosophy, his understanding of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, his rhetoric, and the decisions he made, prosecuting the war. The answer to "what was at stake?", then, tells us a lot about Lincoln, but also lays out a particular vision of America, and the American promise, and whether that promise even makes sense--a question Lincoln wrestled with.
Lincoln's vision of the promise of America is deeply realistic, and yet stubbornly hopeful, that I really appreciate it, in times like these.
March 21, 2020
For someone with a limited background in political science, this little book was a revelation. None of the self-proclaimed Constitutional scholars I see on social media ever take time to acknowledge what the Civil War did to the Founding Fathers' vision of the role of the federal government. The twin concepts of positve and negative liberty were new to me, and I'm still thinking about those passages from this book. All that being said, my favorite chapter was the one that analyzed Lincoln's use of metaphors and allegory. Right up my English major alley. This is a small book that delivers big ideas.
February 9, 2021
My Booktube
3.5/5, but I'm rounding down. Overall this did make me rethink Lincoln & Reconstruction, and frame them in a light that makes them truly seem like a Second American Revolution. However, like the first pages say a lot of the essays in this weren't intended to be collected and thus a few don't feel like they touch on the main theme at all. The ones that most encompass the idea of the Second American Revolution, were the first and last ones, which were written explicitly for this book. So those are great, and I like the idea of this, but the majority of the content in here is just fluff.
3.5/5, but I'm rounding down. Overall this did make me rethink Lincoln & Reconstruction, and frame them in a light that makes them truly seem like a Second American Revolution. However, like the first pages say a lot of the essays in this weren't intended to be collected and thus a few don't feel like they touch on the main theme at all. The ones that most encompass the idea of the Second American Revolution, were the first and last ones, which were written explicitly for this book. So those are great, and I like the idea of this, but the majority of the content in here is just fluff.
May 6, 2017
I enjoyed this short book of academic essay by the most famous Civil War historian James McPherson. The essays look at specific aspects of Lincoln as President including his use of metaphors, his single-minded focus on complete victory in the War, and his views on liberty. Great read for people with a deep Civil War or Lincoln background, but probably too heavy for anyone interested in a popular history.
December 15, 2017
Honestly, the formatting of this book was the most irritating thing about it. A bold font with long paragraphs. Very frustrating to read. That and the fact that this book was basically a composition of contradictory evidence with very little conclusions being reached through the evidence provided. It just gives you the background info (and it's a LOT of background info) and says, "well, here you go!"
January 12, 2021
This superb collection of essays deals with why in the author’s view Lincoln led a second American revolution. Although the essays have slight variations they center on the themes of slavery and the change in outlook from liberty in its negative sense to a positive, more active use of federal power.
I found the essays that particularly deal with those two views of liberty as being a mini tutorial for a good portion of American history to the present day.
I found the essays that particularly deal with those two views of liberty as being a mini tutorial for a good portion of American history to the present day.
February 11, 2020
This is probably one of the best books you will ever read about the true consequences of the American Civil War. I have never read a more clear appraisal of the way the war's outcome changed the way we look at everything from our rights to the Constitution to the role of government. This should be required reading in any history course on the Civil War.
April 2, 2024
A solid series of short essays as to why the Civil War should be seen as a revolution and what Lincolns role was in it. From the author of my favorite general history of the Civil War (battle cry of freedom). Not too repetitive if you've read that book, and not too long if you havent
December 8, 2024
I really enjoyed this as my first history book. It may be too soft on Lincoln in some things(like the fact he arrested tons of journalists and doesn’t mention his policy on natives), but i abdolutely loved how it described the events of the American Civil War and how the events unfolded
August 22, 2025
Very well arranged and concise essays delving into all things Lincoln during his tenure as a war president; analyzed successful Lincoln + Union strategies and painted the picture of a well equipped and witty leader fighting to save the nation
May 10, 2021
The book was interesting but it had some redundancies.
July 8, 2021
Ίσως η καλύτερη δουλειά που έχω διαβάσει για τον Lincoln !
Αξίζει να το αποκτήσετε!
Αξίζει να το αποκτήσετε!
September 16, 2017
Worth reading for the Hedgehog and Fox essay alone
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