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Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln grew up in the long shadow of the Founding Fathers. Seeking an intellectual and emotional replacement for his own taciturn father, Lincoln turned to the great men of the founding-Washington, Paine, Jefferson-and their great documents-the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution-for knowledge, guidance, inspiration, and purpose. Out of the power vacuum created by their passing, Lincoln emerged from among his peers as the true inheritor of the Founders' mantle, bringing their vision to bear on the Civil War and the question of slavery.
In Founders' Son , celebrated historian Richard Brookhiser presents a compelling new biography of Abraham Lincoln that highlights his lifelong struggle to carry on the work of the Founding Fathers. Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, D.C., Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary. And he shows that despite his many roles and his varied life, Lincoln returned time and time again to the Founders. They were rhetorical and political touchstones, the basis of his interest in politics, and the lodestars guiding him as he navigated first Illinois politics and then the national scene.
But their legacy with not sufficient. As the Civil War lengthened and the casualties mounted Lincoln wrestled with one more paternal figure-God the Father-to explain to himself, and to the nation, why ending slavery had come at such a terrible price.
Bridging the rich and tumultuous period from the founding of the United States to the Civil War, Founders' Son is unlike any Lincoln biography to date. Penetrating in its insight, elegant in its prose, and gripping in its vivid recreation of Lincoln's roving mind at work, this book allows us to think anew about the first hundred years of American history, and shows how we can, like Lincoln, apply the legacy of the Founding Fathers to our times.
In Founders' Son , celebrated historian Richard Brookhiser presents a compelling new biography of Abraham Lincoln that highlights his lifelong struggle to carry on the work of the Founding Fathers. Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, D.C., Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary. And he shows that despite his many roles and his varied life, Lincoln returned time and time again to the Founders. They were rhetorical and political touchstones, the basis of his interest in politics, and the lodestars guiding him as he navigated first Illinois politics and then the national scene.
But their legacy with not sufficient. As the Civil War lengthened and the casualties mounted Lincoln wrestled with one more paternal figure-God the Father-to explain to himself, and to the nation, why ending slavery had come at such a terrible price.
Bridging the rich and tumultuous period from the founding of the United States to the Civil War, Founders' Son is unlike any Lincoln biography to date. Penetrating in its insight, elegant in its prose, and gripping in its vivid recreation of Lincoln's roving mind at work, this book allows us to think anew about the first hundred years of American history, and shows how we can, like Lincoln, apply the legacy of the Founding Fathers to our times.
376 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2014
39 people are currently reading
1099 people want to read
About the author
Richard Brookhiser
30 books123 followersRichard Brookhiser, author of Founding Father (Free Press 1996), is a senior editor at National Review and a columnist for The New York Observer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
May 5, 2024
Second listening completed today. I did skip the early years of Lincoln's life. The only change I will make in my review is to improve the grade of the narrator from B to A. I also ordered a hard copy for my grandsons.
Audible sale 12 hours 43 min. Narrated by Norman Dietz (A)
Richard Brookhiser, long-time editor of the National Review, doesn't attempt a detailed biography of Abraham Lincoln in his book. Instead, he shows the great respect Lincoln felt for the Founding Fathers throughout his life, especially through his speeches. Brookhiser's own careful analysis of what may have been on Lincoln's mind helps the reader feel the weight of impact George Washington, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson had years after their deaths. There might even be some rancor Lincoln felt by their "passing the buck" of slavery on to future generations. It is also a call to readers in the 21st century to learn what the Founding Fathers wrote and to appreciate more deeply the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution. I fear that his warning call may even now be too late. I really enjoyed this book as it gave me insight as to why Lincoln's speeches were so effective.
Audible sale 12 hours 43 min. Narrated by Norman Dietz (A)
Richard Brookhiser, long-time editor of the National Review, doesn't attempt a detailed biography of Abraham Lincoln in his book. Instead, he shows the great respect Lincoln felt for the Founding Fathers throughout his life, especially through his speeches. Brookhiser's own careful analysis of what may have been on Lincoln's mind helps the reader feel the weight of impact George Washington, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson had years after their deaths. There might even be some rancor Lincoln felt by their "passing the buck" of slavery on to future generations. It is also a call to readers in the 21st century to learn what the Founding Fathers wrote and to appreciate more deeply the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution. I fear that his warning call may even now be too late. I really enjoyed this book as it gave me insight as to why Lincoln's speeches were so effective.
March 17, 2022
This is a decent enough short biography of Abraham Lincoln, but I’m not sure the thesis - that Lincoln was guided, inspired and animated by the Founding Fathers, and the “true inheritor of their mantle” - was explored to the fullest extent possible. As a result, it kind of reads like a straightforward short biography, with a dash of analysis, philosophy, linguistic interpretation and a few awkward attempts at humor.
At its best, the book analyzes Lincoln’s political philosophy by focusing on where it all started, relating anecdotes about the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in order to establish a foundation for the story of Lincoln’s beliefs. Brookhiser, who has written several books about the founding era, notes that "other books on Lincoln have noted his interest in the Founding Fathers and how he looked back to them, but here, for the first time, a historian of the founding looks ahead to Lincoln."
It’s undeniable that Lincoln found inspiration in the Declaration and showed veneration for the Constitution. But in attempting to link Lincoln to these founding documents and ideals, Brookhiser attempts to personify those links by tying Lincoln directly to the persons of George Washington, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. And those attempts often seem strained.
Because, as a boy, Lincoln once read Parson Weems’ biography of Washington, Brookhiser treats this as Lincoln’s lodestar and comes back to it again and again. Lincoln also read some of Paine’s work, so Brookhiser regards Paine as Lincoln’s muse, who inspired Lincoln’s thinking and style in a way that no one else did. Even less convincing is the attempted connection drawn to Jefferson, with whom Lincoln did not connect on a personal level, but since he admired his Declaration, Jefferson by default becomes the third person in Brookhiser’s troika.
Brookhiser even goes so far as to suggest that Lincoln’s once-expressed belief that he descended from nobility meant that Lincoln fantasized himself a literal (grand)son of a founder like Washington or Jefferson, which, okay.
The writing is mostly straightforward but includes a few odd throwaway attempts at humor, some awkward turns of phrases like Lincoln’s “rube/boob persona” that Brookhiser uses more than a half dozen times, and several clunky similes: A bearded Lincoln "looked like an Easter Island head that had been rolled over the floor of a barber shop," "Politics is like making a journey on horseback that you have never made before," "Lincoln hung on Douglas's shoulder like a jockey trailing another down the backstretch and around the clubhouse turn, waiting for the chance to pull ahead."
The best part of the book is Chapter 13, in which Brookhiser really digs into his thesis - he explores how Lincoln was inspired by the Declaration and the Constitution by flashing back to how the Founders drafted them, he contrasts Lincoln’s views on the Founders’ ideals with those of Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, who considered the Founders to be mistaken on the issue of slavery and believed the Confederacy was correcting them, and he shows how Lincoln most evocatively articulated what he had learned from the Founders in the Gettysburg Address.
If only that chapter’s 17 pages could have been expanded upon to fill a book. Instead, it takes most of the book’s roughly 300 pages just to relate the story of Lincoln’s life, with a smattering of analysis that doesn’t always hit the mark. It’s not a bad book for anyone looking to learn a little something about Lincoln. But for anyone already familiar with his life story, one very good chapter may not be worth the price of admission.
At its best, the book analyzes Lincoln’s political philosophy by focusing on where it all started, relating anecdotes about the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in order to establish a foundation for the story of Lincoln’s beliefs. Brookhiser, who has written several books about the founding era, notes that "other books on Lincoln have noted his interest in the Founding Fathers and how he looked back to them, but here, for the first time, a historian of the founding looks ahead to Lincoln."
It’s undeniable that Lincoln found inspiration in the Declaration and showed veneration for the Constitution. But in attempting to link Lincoln to these founding documents and ideals, Brookhiser attempts to personify those links by tying Lincoln directly to the persons of George Washington, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. And those attempts often seem strained.
Because, as a boy, Lincoln once read Parson Weems’ biography of Washington, Brookhiser treats this as Lincoln’s lodestar and comes back to it again and again. Lincoln also read some of Paine’s work, so Brookhiser regards Paine as Lincoln’s muse, who inspired Lincoln’s thinking and style in a way that no one else did. Even less convincing is the attempted connection drawn to Jefferson, with whom Lincoln did not connect on a personal level, but since he admired his Declaration, Jefferson by default becomes the third person in Brookhiser’s troika.
Brookhiser even goes so far as to suggest that Lincoln’s once-expressed belief that he descended from nobility meant that Lincoln fantasized himself a literal (grand)son of a founder like Washington or Jefferson, which, okay.
The writing is mostly straightforward but includes a few odd throwaway attempts at humor, some awkward turns of phrases like Lincoln’s “rube/boob persona” that Brookhiser uses more than a half dozen times, and several clunky similes: A bearded Lincoln "looked like an Easter Island head that had been rolled over the floor of a barber shop," "Politics is like making a journey on horseback that you have never made before," "Lincoln hung on Douglas's shoulder like a jockey trailing another down the backstretch and around the clubhouse turn, waiting for the chance to pull ahead."
The best part of the book is Chapter 13, in which Brookhiser really digs into his thesis - he explores how Lincoln was inspired by the Declaration and the Constitution by flashing back to how the Founders drafted them, he contrasts Lincoln’s views on the Founders’ ideals with those of Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, who considered the Founders to be mistaken on the issue of slavery and believed the Confederacy was correcting them, and he shows how Lincoln most evocatively articulated what he had learned from the Founders in the Gettysburg Address.
If only that chapter’s 17 pages could have been expanded upon to fill a book. Instead, it takes most of the book’s roughly 300 pages just to relate the story of Lincoln’s life, with a smattering of analysis that doesn’t always hit the mark. It’s not a bad book for anyone looking to learn a little something about Lincoln. But for anyone already familiar with his life story, one very good chapter may not be worth the price of admission.
February 13, 2022
https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2022...
Notwithstanding the book’s subtitle (and its marketing claim) this is not a biography of Lincoln in any traditional sense. It does cover the major events of his life in varying degrees of detail…but with frequent (and often lengthy) philosophical diversions. These tangents are not meant to be distracting, however; they are the point of the book.
The author’s objective is to highlight Lincoln’s lifelong efforts to perpetuate the work of the Founding Fathers and to connect his actions to his understanding of the intentions of luminaries such as George Washington, Thomas Paine and Henry Clay. Although the biographical portion of the narrative is frustratingly discontinuous by design, the book is somewhat successful in accomplishing its intended purpose.
This book’s overarching flaw, however, is that it is neither a dedicated biography nor a focused exploration of Lincoln’s political philosophy. Instead, it is an awkward hybrid of the two which leaves the “whole” worth less than the sum of its parts. At times this book is engrossing; on occasion it is nearly impassable. It can be intellectually stimulating on one page and regrettably pro forma on the next.
So while the author’s mission seems intriguing, his execution is flawed. It is hampered, one might assume, by a lack of hard evidence to support his thesis. And instead of drawing explicit connections between Lincoln’s thoughts, his interpretation of the Founders’ words and deeds, and his ensuing actions, much of the book is conjecture and supposition…occasionally bordering on psychoanalysis.
Fortunately, “Founders’ Son” is not without moments of clear merit. It periodically provides valuable insights that will delight even well-read fans of Lincoln. Introductions to characters such as Paine, Clay and Stephen Douglas are unexpectedly engrossing (almost serving as mini-biographies). And the author’s consideration of Lincoln’s evolving view of slavery is notable.
Overall, however, Richard Brookhiser’s “Founders’ Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln” is not a book well-suited to most fans of presidential biographies. Readers seeking a traditional biographical experience (or even a cohesive introduction to the 16th president) will quickly become frustrated – and possibly confused. And even the most Lincoln-literate readers are likely to find there is not quite enough “meat on the bones” to be fully satisfying.
Overall Rating: 3 stars
Notwithstanding the book’s subtitle (and its marketing claim) this is not a biography of Lincoln in any traditional sense. It does cover the major events of his life in varying degrees of detail…but with frequent (and often lengthy) philosophical diversions. These tangents are not meant to be distracting, however; they are the point of the book.
The author’s objective is to highlight Lincoln’s lifelong efforts to perpetuate the work of the Founding Fathers and to connect his actions to his understanding of the intentions of luminaries such as George Washington, Thomas Paine and Henry Clay. Although the biographical portion of the narrative is frustratingly discontinuous by design, the book is somewhat successful in accomplishing its intended purpose.
This book’s overarching flaw, however, is that it is neither a dedicated biography nor a focused exploration of Lincoln’s political philosophy. Instead, it is an awkward hybrid of the two which leaves the “whole” worth less than the sum of its parts. At times this book is engrossing; on occasion it is nearly impassable. It can be intellectually stimulating on one page and regrettably pro forma on the next.
So while the author’s mission seems intriguing, his execution is flawed. It is hampered, one might assume, by a lack of hard evidence to support his thesis. And instead of drawing explicit connections between Lincoln’s thoughts, his interpretation of the Founders’ words and deeds, and his ensuing actions, much of the book is conjecture and supposition…occasionally bordering on psychoanalysis.
Fortunately, “Founders’ Son” is not without moments of clear merit. It periodically provides valuable insights that will delight even well-read fans of Lincoln. Introductions to characters such as Paine, Clay and Stephen Douglas are unexpectedly engrossing (almost serving as mini-biographies). And the author’s consideration of Lincoln’s evolving view of slavery is notable.
Overall, however, Richard Brookhiser’s “Founders’ Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln” is not a book well-suited to most fans of presidential biographies. Readers seeking a traditional biographical experience (or even a cohesive introduction to the 16th president) will quickly become frustrated – and possibly confused. And even the most Lincoln-literate readers are likely to find there is not quite enough “meat on the bones” to be fully satisfying.
Overall Rating: 3 stars
June 28, 2014
"Other books on Lincoln have noted his interest in the founding fathers and how he looked back to them, but here, for the first time, a historian of the founding looks ahead to Lincoln."
And so he did. This is a truly excellent example of careful research and a desire to look at a much analysed life in a way that it has not been considered before.
I have read tons of Lincoln books. I know people say this about books a lot, but truly, I have been collecting them since childhood and I read everything I can find on the subject. Naturally, when there have been so many books written about one man, (if you want to see an example of this, check out the Lincoln Book Tower at Ford's,)you are sure to run into information that has been documented before, albeit not always correctly. In such cases, it becomes important to the armchair researcher how the information is presented. This book took a different approach to telling the story of Lincoln from his youngest days to the end.
It was appealing to me to see a book that did not focus on the untimely death of the sixteenth president, but rather his life. His preoccupations with certain poets, George Washington and Lincoln's propensity to suffer from melancholy and discontent with religious beliefs were focal points of this book instead. I felt while reading this, as though the author has made a great connection with history and was a reliable source for information as well as a talented wordsmith. This book does not have the drab, dull feel of a history book as many such titles do.
**My favourite thing about this book was the way the author approached giving facts. There was no point when I thought "well that was certainly subjective to your own interpretation." So many Lincoln books have lost me for the author's inability to keep their own opinions out of the way of the facts. Thank you, Mr. Brookhiser for giving it to us straight.
Getting to know Lincoln through his interests and the events and people who shaped him into the famous man we have all heard about was a nice approach for this book. If you are interested in Lincoln, the founding fathers or American history in general, this would be a great addition to your library.
This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher. All opinions are my own.
And so he did. This is a truly excellent example of careful research and a desire to look at a much analysed life in a way that it has not been considered before.
I have read tons of Lincoln books. I know people say this about books a lot, but truly, I have been collecting them since childhood and I read everything I can find on the subject. Naturally, when there have been so many books written about one man, (if you want to see an example of this, check out the Lincoln Book Tower at Ford's,)you are sure to run into information that has been documented before, albeit not always correctly. In such cases, it becomes important to the armchair researcher how the information is presented. This book took a different approach to telling the story of Lincoln from his youngest days to the end.
It was appealing to me to see a book that did not focus on the untimely death of the sixteenth president, but rather his life. His preoccupations with certain poets, George Washington and Lincoln's propensity to suffer from melancholy and discontent with religious beliefs were focal points of this book instead. I felt while reading this, as though the author has made a great connection with history and was a reliable source for information as well as a talented wordsmith. This book does not have the drab, dull feel of a history book as many such titles do.
**My favourite thing about this book was the way the author approached giving facts. There was no point when I thought "well that was certainly subjective to your own interpretation." So many Lincoln books have lost me for the author's inability to keep their own opinions out of the way of the facts. Thank you, Mr. Brookhiser for giving it to us straight.
Getting to know Lincoln through his interests and the events and people who shaped him into the famous man we have all heard about was a nice approach for this book. If you are interested in Lincoln, the founding fathers or American history in general, this would be a great addition to your library.
This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher. All opinions are my own.
April 30, 2019
There are so many Lincoln biographies. This one actually has a new perspective—Lincoln’s relationship with his many “fathers”.
Lincoln had a fraught relationship with his actual father, Thomas Lincoln, and considered his late teen years as being in bondage to his father. He found himself as a son of the Founders, especially Jefferson. But most interesting was the author’s final chapter in which he looks at Lincoln’s relation to God the Father, particularly as Lincoln was not religious nor belonged to a church. Brookhiser considers the development of the religious themes in the Second Inaugural Address as evidence of this relationship.
An interesting theme enriches what might have been a standard biography.
Lincoln had a fraught relationship with his actual father, Thomas Lincoln, and considered his late teen years as being in bondage to his father. He found himself as a son of the Founders, especially Jefferson. But most interesting was the author’s final chapter in which he looks at Lincoln’s relation to God the Father, particularly as Lincoln was not religious nor belonged to a church. Brookhiser considers the development of the religious themes in the Second Inaugural Address as evidence of this relationship.
An interesting theme enriches what might have been a standard biography.
April 2, 2016
Book 7 of 40
There are more books out there about Lincoln then pollen in Atlanta in the spring. In Founders' Son Richard Brookhiser writes about Lincoln's political philosophy and its development and how it figured into his actions in the presidency.
Lincoln was a believer in the Founders and was aware that the Founders were anti-slavery but at the same time rational about how far they could go in destroying slavery because they need to have a unified country. Lincoln's core sources for his philosophy were Washington, Thomas Pain, Henry Clay, Thomas Jefferson/Declaration of Independence, The Preamble to the Constitution/Gouverneur Morris, and God.
Brookhiser devotes chapter to each and then shows how that persons ideals get incorporated into Lincoln's speeches and governing actions. Washington is self explanatory being the first to create the executive. Lincoln believed strongly in the language and philosophy of the Declaration but like myself Lincoln feels that Jefferson is a hypocrite and fails to live and govern my his greatest work.
Lincoln does feel that Gouverneur Morris was the driving force of the Constitutions Preamble not Madison. Morris was a strong abolitionist from Pennsylvania who pushed to have slavery limited by the new government but was limited by needing a unified 13 states and already having 2 hold outs.
Brookhiser also spends time talking about Lincoln's relationship with religion which is a complicated one that has been well documented before. But Brookhiser looks past Lincoln's personal's beliefs and focuses how Lincoln uses the Bible to further his arguments against first the expansion of slavery but then to the abolition of slavery.
Overall an excellent book that sticks to its goal of attempting to define and examine the roots of Lincoln's political philosophy.
There are more books out there about Lincoln then pollen in Atlanta in the spring. In Founders' Son Richard Brookhiser writes about Lincoln's political philosophy and its development and how it figured into his actions in the presidency.
Lincoln was a believer in the Founders and was aware that the Founders were anti-slavery but at the same time rational about how far they could go in destroying slavery because they need to have a unified country. Lincoln's core sources for his philosophy were Washington, Thomas Pain, Henry Clay, Thomas Jefferson/Declaration of Independence, The Preamble to the Constitution/Gouverneur Morris, and God.
Brookhiser devotes chapter to each and then shows how that persons ideals get incorporated into Lincoln's speeches and governing actions. Washington is self explanatory being the first to create the executive. Lincoln believed strongly in the language and philosophy of the Declaration but like myself Lincoln feels that Jefferson is a hypocrite and fails to live and govern my his greatest work.
Lincoln does feel that Gouverneur Morris was the driving force of the Constitutions Preamble not Madison. Morris was a strong abolitionist from Pennsylvania who pushed to have slavery limited by the new government but was limited by needing a unified 13 states and already having 2 hold outs.
Brookhiser also spends time talking about Lincoln's relationship with religion which is a complicated one that has been well documented before. But Brookhiser looks past Lincoln's personal's beliefs and focuses how Lincoln uses the Bible to further his arguments against first the expansion of slavery but then to the abolition of slavery.
Overall an excellent book that sticks to its goal of attempting to define and examine the roots of Lincoln's political philosophy.
April 29, 2025
Clear, concise, and even a bit poetic, this book fills a gap in the Lincoln legacy. While it didn't present all that much new information about Lincoln, the information that was presented was presented with style and aplomb. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Lincoln's connection and interaction with the founding fathers. That was the main theme of this biography. A very good effort.
June 21, 2015
Since so many others seem to admire Brookhiser's latest, it must've my academic tastebuds, but I thought this was awful. In fact, I surrendered about halfway through. Bored beyond belief, drowning in endless minutiae and absorbing a point of view which seems both quasi-religious (Boo!) and pontifical all the time trying to affect a modern, breezy style. Again, it maybe my taste...but...tedious.
June 20, 2024
Enjoyed this biography in how it weaves together the narrative of Lincoln’s life as well as how Lincoln drew inspiration from the Founders. Brookhiser developed a consistent theme of Lincoln retrieving from Washington, Jefferson, and others what he believed they were communicating in the founding of the republic. It is vividly shown how the leaders of the Confederacy saw the founders getting a lot wrong.
The most powerful chapter to me was near the end and Lincoln’s wrestling with God as Father.
The most powerful chapter to me was near the end and Lincoln’s wrestling with God as Father.
March 21, 2016
Richard Brookhiser has written a wonderful book on our 16th President. His basic premise is that Abraham Lincoln was a "Founders' Son," in the sense that he represented the next generation of leaders who based their political careers on the first principles of our nation's founding.
As always with each new book on Lincoln we have to ask what new is being presented. To be honest, not that much. The story of Lincoln's life is familiar to most of us, and the author doesn't extend the basic biography beyond that familiarity. But that doesn't take away from the great storytelling and reflections on how Lincoln found inspiration and guidance from the Founders and their organization of this country. Brookhiser does so by interweaving Lincoln's basic life history with Lincoln's own words referring to founding principles.
The life history is succinct and clear. Where strict biographies delve deeply into incidents and rationales for the usual span of Lincoln's life, Brookhiser may capture the essence in a mere sentence or two. This pithy presentation of the major events both fills in the necessary background and provides the skeleton upon which the author layers the links to founders like Washington, Jefferson, and others, as well as the overarching tethers to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other key driving decisions such as the Northwest Ordinance.
Structurally the book is divided into three parts, each containing several chapters. Part One alternates between concise descriptions of Lincoln's youth (1809-1830), manhood (1830-1840), and maturity (1840-1852) and chapters comparing Lincoln's views with those of "Washington and Liberty," "Thomas Paine and Reason," and "Henry Clay."
Part Two continues the roughly chronological recounting of Lincoln's life, carrying us through the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, his Senate and presidential runs, and his 1860 election. A chapter on Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence pulls together the thread between the Founders and Lincoln.
Part Three again alternates between general Lincoln and Civil War historical events with further expositions regarding Lincoln's emphasis on the preamble of the Constitution and Lincoln's (and the nation's) relationship with "God the Father."
Of course, the biographical event chapters are not simply repetition of facts; they also include the development of connections between Lincoln's views on liberty, freedom, race, and the role of the federal authority as a means "to elevate the condition of men."
Overall, this is a fascinating account, a unique perspective by which to examine the guiding forces behind Lincoln's drive to emancipate the slaves, improve the opportunities of all men to advance themselves, and return a splitting nation to the Union so desperately begetted by our Founding Fathers. Brookhiser's book is well worth the read.
As always with each new book on Lincoln we have to ask what new is being presented. To be honest, not that much. The story of Lincoln's life is familiar to most of us, and the author doesn't extend the basic biography beyond that familiarity. But that doesn't take away from the great storytelling and reflections on how Lincoln found inspiration and guidance from the Founders and their organization of this country. Brookhiser does so by interweaving Lincoln's basic life history with Lincoln's own words referring to founding principles.
The life history is succinct and clear. Where strict biographies delve deeply into incidents and rationales for the usual span of Lincoln's life, Brookhiser may capture the essence in a mere sentence or two. This pithy presentation of the major events both fills in the necessary background and provides the skeleton upon which the author layers the links to founders like Washington, Jefferson, and others, as well as the overarching tethers to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other key driving decisions such as the Northwest Ordinance.
Structurally the book is divided into three parts, each containing several chapters. Part One alternates between concise descriptions of Lincoln's youth (1809-1830), manhood (1830-1840), and maturity (1840-1852) and chapters comparing Lincoln's views with those of "Washington and Liberty," "Thomas Paine and Reason," and "Henry Clay."
Part Two continues the roughly chronological recounting of Lincoln's life, carrying us through the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, his Senate and presidential runs, and his 1860 election. A chapter on Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence pulls together the thread between the Founders and Lincoln.
Part Three again alternates between general Lincoln and Civil War historical events with further expositions regarding Lincoln's emphasis on the preamble of the Constitution and Lincoln's (and the nation's) relationship with "God the Father."
Of course, the biographical event chapters are not simply repetition of facts; they also include the development of connections between Lincoln's views on liberty, freedom, race, and the role of the federal authority as a means "to elevate the condition of men."
Overall, this is a fascinating account, a unique perspective by which to examine the guiding forces behind Lincoln's drive to emancipate the slaves, improve the opportunities of all men to advance themselves, and return a splitting nation to the Union so desperately begetted by our Founding Fathers. Brookhiser's book is well worth the read.
March 6, 2018
This is an interesting approach to Lincoln's life. I liked the premise that Lincoln was significantly influenced by the founding fathers -- and Brookhiser does make his premise that Lincoln became the man he was due to their influence. He also asserts that Lincoln evolved into the politician he was through his constant effort to become the next generation of political patriarchs of a sometimes fragile governmental system.
One thing that I got tired of throughout the book was that Brookhiser didn't really have enough supporting material to make his case. He continuously seemed to use the same quotes and references over and over (sometimes within pages of each other). It worked for the first part of the book -- but by the last half it started to feel like he was beating a dead horse. In the end I came away feeling like he just kept saying the same thing over and over.
One thing that I got tired of throughout the book was that Brookhiser didn't really have enough supporting material to make his case. He continuously seemed to use the same quotes and references over and over (sometimes within pages of each other). It worked for the first part of the book -- but by the last half it started to feel like he was beating a dead horse. In the end I came away feeling like he just kept saying the same thing over and over.
March 12, 2015
Brookhiser's thesis in writing this book is that Lincoln was highly influenced by the Founding Fathers. Because this thesis is so obvious - every politician of the time was so influenced - Brookhiser struggles to produce a book worth reading. As a Lincoln biography the book skims the surface and uncovers nothing new. Prior to writing this book, all of Brookhiser's books are about the Revolutionary period and are quite good. Based on this book, he should stay there.
May 18, 2020
Excellent overview of a great man and the way he stayed true to the founding fathers.
December 29, 2014
The pity of the great tales is their stories have already been told. While every few years some brave soul will attempt a comprehensive biography, for most researchers and readers there is a need to find new illuminating angles, if only to starve off boredom. Hence, this take on Abraham Lincoln and his relationship with the US Founding Fathers.
There's much to recommend about this biography. Brookhiser has a regularly clever turn of phrase, and he has done his homework, turning up some original insights that I had not seen before. Yet there isn't quite the material to sustain the theme. Brookhiser does well to eke out chapters on how Lincoln learned from George Washington and Thomas Paine, but after that it becomes somewhat exhausted.
It seems there isn't quite the material for a thematic or founder-by-founder analysis, so this book quickly turns into a somewhat pottered biography of Lincoln. One of the better you'll read, especially in just 300 pages, but still I was left wishing for slightly more. Or slightly less but tighter. Or slightly more expansive - especially with a writer of this quality - at the risk of appearing speculative fiction. Instead, this book is safe and solid, as befitting the theme.
The best takes on Lincoln I've come across are those that set the man in his time. Like Allen Guelzo's Fateful Lightning, or James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Set alone, Lincoln always manages to escape being captured by the page, even in the hands of as talented a writer as Gore Vidal or Richard Brookhiser. Maybe some great stories can never be properly told.
There's much to recommend about this biography. Brookhiser has a regularly clever turn of phrase, and he has done his homework, turning up some original insights that I had not seen before. Yet there isn't quite the material to sustain the theme. Brookhiser does well to eke out chapters on how Lincoln learned from George Washington and Thomas Paine, but after that it becomes somewhat exhausted.
It seems there isn't quite the material for a thematic or founder-by-founder analysis, so this book quickly turns into a somewhat pottered biography of Lincoln. One of the better you'll read, especially in just 300 pages, but still I was left wishing for slightly more. Or slightly less but tighter. Or slightly more expansive - especially with a writer of this quality - at the risk of appearing speculative fiction. Instead, this book is safe and solid, as befitting the theme.
The best takes on Lincoln I've come across are those that set the man in his time. Like Allen Guelzo's Fateful Lightning, or James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Set alone, Lincoln always manages to escape being captured by the page, even in the hands of as talented a writer as Gore Vidal or Richard Brookhiser. Maybe some great stories can never be properly told.
August 17, 2020
Entertaining and accessible, Brookhiser shows how Lincoln fought with his political opponents, both northern Democrats and southern slavery apologists, to make his interpretation of the principles of America's founding stick.
As it is today, so in the mid-19th century, an American's idea of history was the basis for his or her idea of the present and future.
Today, in an era as focused on progress in technology as it is on pop culture, our interest in the past scarcely reaches back to World War II and usually stops at the the Civil Rights, anti-war and social justice movements of the 1960s. We tend to see the founders of the 1770s and 1780s as irrelevant to our concerns at best. At worst, we blame Washington, Jefferson and other founders (except Hamilton, who has now been cleansed by Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical) as racist white men responsible for our country's most persistent social problems.
But in Lincoln's time, Americans still found the era of the Revolution to be relevant to the current politics of their day. Nobody was tearing down statues of George Washington. And only a few abolitionists talked about how the nation's founding documents were written with the ink of prejudice and deserved to be burned and replaced with more enlightened versions. Instead, in the middle of the 19th century, politicians of all stripes referred to the intentions of the founding fathers as the best guide for dealing with issues of their day, especially the hottest one, what to do about slavery.
Northern Democrats like Stephen Douglas favored maximum compromise with southern slaveowners to avoid conflict and claimed that this is what the American founders intended. Douglas claimed that the Declaration of Independence's self-evident truth that all men are created equal applied only to white men and not to black people or anyone else: "this government was made by our fathers on the white basis ... made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever." He and other Democrats opposed federal bans on slavery in new western states and said that the people of those states should get to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery or not. This of course would have led to the likely expansion of slavery into many of those new states and the persistence of slavery into the indefinite future.
By contrast, Lincoln held that the founders did not plan to protect slavery to ensure its perpetual existence and even expansion, but instead, merely compromised with an existing institution that they hated and hoped to put on the road to extinction. Thus, the Declaration covered all people, not just whites. As evidence, Lincoln cited Jefferson's deleted passages criticizing the British crown for forcing the slave trade on its American colonies against their will.
Lincoln also held that the Constitution was an anti-slavery compact, viewing slavery as a kind of cancer whose existence the founders recognized only reluctantly, and which they wanted to cure. Thus, the Constitution protected the international slave trade for only 20 years, not in perpetuity. Also, the words "slave" or "slavery" never appeared in the document. Lincoln took this as evidence that the framers hoped to eventually see slavery gone.
Finally, the Northwest Ordinance, which excluded slavery from territories north of the Ohio river ceded by Virginia to the federal government, prohibited slavery. For Lincoln, all these together prove that the founders accepted slavery only as a compromise measure to create the Union in the first place, but that they did whatever they could at the time to put slavery on the path to extinction.
Ironically, when it came to interpreting the founders' views on slavery, southern secessionists also agreed with Lincoln, who they saw as their enemy, rather than Douglas and the Democrats, who were the southern planters' friends. Secessionists agreed that the founders thought that slavery was bad, that it was inconsistent with the principles that America was founded on, and that slavery would ultimately decline and then end. And that was the one area where the founders were wrong, according to Confederates. Their government would correct this error, and forever establish the white race in its proper position of dominance over black people.
This view is most famously expressed in Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens's "Cornerstone Speech" in which he justified the new Confederate Constitution, a copy of the U.S. founding covenant in nearly every way but one -- the southern version explicitly mentioned slavery by name and gave it the protection of positive law.
The Civil War decided the issue ultimately in favor of Lincoln. Yet, even today activists on both the far right (neo-Nazis, alt right, white nationalists) and on the far left alike (black nationalists, antifa) still seem to agree with Douglas's view that America was founded as a white supremacist country and that it will never be anything different. The racist right thinks this is a good thing. The anti-racist left thinks it's an indelible stain on America's founding documents that means those documents should probably be shredded and replaced with new ones.
Lincoln's relevance to this debate today is clear: don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. That is, when you throw out white supremacy, don't throw out America's founding -- the Declaration and Constitution and the figures of the founders themselves, especially Jefferson and Washington, who Lincoln considered to be pioneers of freedom and equality. In fact, our country was always an anti-slavery one. It just took us time, and a huge loss of blood, to make it official.
Still, Lincoln recognized that there was much work left to make Americans both white and black truly free. Unfortunately, Booth's bullet ensured that Lincoln would not live to supervise that work. And that's a big reason why the next 150 years turned out to be a contentious fight over civil rights, one that continues right through the present hour.
Brookhiser tells this story in an entertaining way going back to Lincoln's upbringing and first encounters with the writings of the founders. Highly recommended for any reader interested in the biography of Lincoln and history of the debates around slavery as background for today's conversation about racial equity issues.
As it is today, so in the mid-19th century, an American's idea of history was the basis for his or her idea of the present and future.
Today, in an era as focused on progress in technology as it is on pop culture, our interest in the past scarcely reaches back to World War II and usually stops at the the Civil Rights, anti-war and social justice movements of the 1960s. We tend to see the founders of the 1770s and 1780s as irrelevant to our concerns at best. At worst, we blame Washington, Jefferson and other founders (except Hamilton, who has now been cleansed by Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical) as racist white men responsible for our country's most persistent social problems.
But in Lincoln's time, Americans still found the era of the Revolution to be relevant to the current politics of their day. Nobody was tearing down statues of George Washington. And only a few abolitionists talked about how the nation's founding documents were written with the ink of prejudice and deserved to be burned and replaced with more enlightened versions. Instead, in the middle of the 19th century, politicians of all stripes referred to the intentions of the founding fathers as the best guide for dealing with issues of their day, especially the hottest one, what to do about slavery.
Northern Democrats like Stephen Douglas favored maximum compromise with southern slaveowners to avoid conflict and claimed that this is what the American founders intended. Douglas claimed that the Declaration of Independence's self-evident truth that all men are created equal applied only to white men and not to black people or anyone else: "this government was made by our fathers on the white basis ... made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever." He and other Democrats opposed federal bans on slavery in new western states and said that the people of those states should get to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery or not. This of course would have led to the likely expansion of slavery into many of those new states and the persistence of slavery into the indefinite future.
By contrast, Lincoln held that the founders did not plan to protect slavery to ensure its perpetual existence and even expansion, but instead, merely compromised with an existing institution that they hated and hoped to put on the road to extinction. Thus, the Declaration covered all people, not just whites. As evidence, Lincoln cited Jefferson's deleted passages criticizing the British crown for forcing the slave trade on its American colonies against their will.
Lincoln also held that the Constitution was an anti-slavery compact, viewing slavery as a kind of cancer whose existence the founders recognized only reluctantly, and which they wanted to cure. Thus, the Constitution protected the international slave trade for only 20 years, not in perpetuity. Also, the words "slave" or "slavery" never appeared in the document. Lincoln took this as evidence that the framers hoped to eventually see slavery gone.
Finally, the Northwest Ordinance, which excluded slavery from territories north of the Ohio river ceded by Virginia to the federal government, prohibited slavery. For Lincoln, all these together prove that the founders accepted slavery only as a compromise measure to create the Union in the first place, but that they did whatever they could at the time to put slavery on the path to extinction.
Ironically, when it came to interpreting the founders' views on slavery, southern secessionists also agreed with Lincoln, who they saw as their enemy, rather than Douglas and the Democrats, who were the southern planters' friends. Secessionists agreed that the founders thought that slavery was bad, that it was inconsistent with the principles that America was founded on, and that slavery would ultimately decline and then end. And that was the one area where the founders were wrong, according to Confederates. Their government would correct this error, and forever establish the white race in its proper position of dominance over black people.
This view is most famously expressed in Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens's "Cornerstone Speech" in which he justified the new Confederate Constitution, a copy of the U.S. founding covenant in nearly every way but one -- the southern version explicitly mentioned slavery by name and gave it the protection of positive law.
The Civil War decided the issue ultimately in favor of Lincoln. Yet, even today activists on both the far right (neo-Nazis, alt right, white nationalists) and on the far left alike (black nationalists, antifa) still seem to agree with Douglas's view that America was founded as a white supremacist country and that it will never be anything different. The racist right thinks this is a good thing. The anti-racist left thinks it's an indelible stain on America's founding documents that means those documents should probably be shredded and replaced with new ones.
Lincoln's relevance to this debate today is clear: don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. That is, when you throw out white supremacy, don't throw out America's founding -- the Declaration and Constitution and the figures of the founders themselves, especially Jefferson and Washington, who Lincoln considered to be pioneers of freedom and equality. In fact, our country was always an anti-slavery one. It just took us time, and a huge loss of blood, to make it official.
Still, Lincoln recognized that there was much work left to make Americans both white and black truly free. Unfortunately, Booth's bullet ensured that Lincoln would not live to supervise that work. And that's a big reason why the next 150 years turned out to be a contentious fight over civil rights, one that continues right through the present hour.
Brookhiser tells this story in an entertaining way going back to Lincoln's upbringing and first encounters with the writings of the founders. Highly recommended for any reader interested in the biography of Lincoln and history of the debates around slavery as background for today's conversation about racial equity issues.
June 1, 2015
Richard Brookhiser has done it again. Although the subject of this book is outside the time period he normally covers, Brookhiser brilliantly brings his writing style to convey an important point, that Lincoln is the intellectual champion of the Founding Fathers. Brookhiser discusses the influence that Washington, Jefferson, Paine, and, most importantly, Henry Clay had upon Lincoln. He also demonstrates that Lincoln's belief in the injustice of slavery came from his interpretation and adoration of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He believed that slavery was agreed to out of necessity. Most importantly, he demonstrates that the confederacy believed our Declaration of Independence to be flawed because of its claim that, "All men are created equal."
April 16, 2015
Lincoln was a fan of Geo. Washington from childhood, reading all he could find on him, and a passion for the Founding Fathers. His speeches seeking votes for various elected offices reflected his study of their writings. Book repeated some of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals about Lincoln's cabinet pick. I learned that Gen. Winfield Scott was a great battle planner, but too old to carry out the command and only Grant & Sherman carried out his Anaconda war plan. A 3 star book til chapter 15 when it was apparent something spiritual was happening in Lincoln's life. By the 2nd Inaugural Lincoln let go of the founding fathers and faced God the Father directly.
June 4, 2022
Book: Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln
Author: Richard Brookhiser
Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (14 October 2014)
Language: English
Hardcover: 376 pages
Item Weight: 632 g
Dimensions: 16.51 x 3.18 x 24.45 cm
Price: 2337/-
The theatrical and heartrending bereavement of Abraham Lincoln did not outshine the attainments of his life. His great, permanent donation was to reinstate the North and the South into a united nation once again.
Beyond that, he tried to right the imperfections in the Constitution by declaring the Emancipation Proclamation.
By the time Lincoln died, he had done his best to see that people of all races living in the United States would be entitled to life, freedom, and the quest of contentment.
Determination and opportunity are identical with Abraham Lincoln. Notwithstanding the rigid events of his birth, he struggled and worked to advance himself further than the accepted rank of his family.
This book tells the tale of a life, which was an incessant ascend uphill and striving for achievements.
Yet the qualities that brought him to the presidency remained with him all his life. He prized industry, intelligence, and especially honesty. No matter what he did, those qualities always formed the foundation of his character.
In youth he always insisted on fairness in sports so that he came to be the standing umpire of the locality. It came out also in his practise of the law, when he would not lend his power to further crooked schemes, nor would he consent to take an unreasonable benefit of an opponent.
But the magnificence of his sincerity appeared in his administration. It is a magnificent fact that there has never been any doubt, even among his enemies, that he used the high powers of his office for gain, or for the furtherance of his political aspiration.
When contracts, to the amount of many millions of dollars, were being constantly given out for a period of four years, there was never a thought that a dishonest dollar would find its way, either directly or indirectly, into the hands of the President, or with his consent into the hands of his friends.
When he was a candidate for reelection he was fully aware that some officials of high station were using their prerogatives for the purpose of injuring him.
It was in his power to dismiss these in disgrace,—and they deserved it. This he refused to do. So long as they did well their official duties, he overlooked their injustice to him. No President has surpassed him in the cleanness of his record, and only Washington has equaled him.
This book is not a comprehensive biography of Lincoln, or a history of his times. It is not about Lincoln’s marriage, or how the Battle of Gettysburg was won, though it touches on these and many other points. This book is a narration of a career, and the recitation of the ideas that animated it.
Because Lincoln was a politician in a democracy, he had to present his ideas to the public; a history of his career is in large part a history of his rhetoric. Rhetoric is how democratic politicians point with pride and view with alarm; how they sketch their visions and justify their deals. It is one of the most important ways by which they earn their reputations, win elections, and wield power.
The book has been divided into three parts.
*The first part of the book deals with Lincoln’s early life, his relationship with his biological father and introduction through books to the founding fathers of America.
*The second section deals with the intellectual and historical background of the making of Lincoln.
*The final, third part introduces in details the milieu and events of the civil war, eventual emancipation and finally the conspiracy and death of Lincoln.
Truth be told, there is a lot of Lincoln’s writing in this book — jotted down notes, state papers, private letters that were written for public consumption. There is even more of his speaking — orations before huge open-air crowds, stories told in small rooms. Because Lincoln was both self-educated and versatile, he drew on an assortment of models and genres: wit, common sense, poetry; fart jokes, Euclid, Byron.
Lincoln went from mocking the Bible as a teenager to channeling it as a rashly old man. But frequently he came back to the founders, the men who most inspired him.
This book is also a history of the afterlife of those grand Americans, his precursors — how their words and their reputes infiltrated into the 19th century, in great debates and in the frontier reading of a curious boy.
Other books on Lincoln have noted his interest in the founding fathers and how he looked back to them, but here, for the first time, a historian of the founding looks ahead to Lincoln.
This book, finally, is training—in thinking, feeling, and acting. The founding fathers were world-historical figures; so was Abraham Lincoln.
If we study how Lincoln connected with them, we can learn how to connect with them, and him, ourselves.
Eye-catching was his integrity. The sobriquet "Honest Abe Lincoln," which his fellow citizens fastened on him in his formative years was never lost.
This was something more than the precision of commercial truthfulness which forbade him to touch a penny of the funds that remained over from the wiped out post-office of New Salem, though the government was for years neglectful in the matter of settling up.
Honesty was indeed the best policy for Lincoln.
A most recommended book.
Author: Richard Brookhiser
Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (14 October 2014)
Language: English
Hardcover: 376 pages
Item Weight: 632 g
Dimensions: 16.51 x 3.18 x 24.45 cm
Price: 2337/-
The theatrical and heartrending bereavement of Abraham Lincoln did not outshine the attainments of his life. His great, permanent donation was to reinstate the North and the South into a united nation once again.
Beyond that, he tried to right the imperfections in the Constitution by declaring the Emancipation Proclamation.
By the time Lincoln died, he had done his best to see that people of all races living in the United States would be entitled to life, freedom, and the quest of contentment.
Determination and opportunity are identical with Abraham Lincoln. Notwithstanding the rigid events of his birth, he struggled and worked to advance himself further than the accepted rank of his family.
This book tells the tale of a life, which was an incessant ascend uphill and striving for achievements.
Yet the qualities that brought him to the presidency remained with him all his life. He prized industry, intelligence, and especially honesty. No matter what he did, those qualities always formed the foundation of his character.
In youth he always insisted on fairness in sports so that he came to be the standing umpire of the locality. It came out also in his practise of the law, when he would not lend his power to further crooked schemes, nor would he consent to take an unreasonable benefit of an opponent.
But the magnificence of his sincerity appeared in his administration. It is a magnificent fact that there has never been any doubt, even among his enemies, that he used the high powers of his office for gain, or for the furtherance of his political aspiration.
When contracts, to the amount of many millions of dollars, were being constantly given out for a period of four years, there was never a thought that a dishonest dollar would find its way, either directly or indirectly, into the hands of the President, or with his consent into the hands of his friends.
When he was a candidate for reelection he was fully aware that some officials of high station were using their prerogatives for the purpose of injuring him.
It was in his power to dismiss these in disgrace,—and they deserved it. This he refused to do. So long as they did well their official duties, he overlooked their injustice to him. No President has surpassed him in the cleanness of his record, and only Washington has equaled him.
This book is not a comprehensive biography of Lincoln, or a history of his times. It is not about Lincoln’s marriage, or how the Battle of Gettysburg was won, though it touches on these and many other points. This book is a narration of a career, and the recitation of the ideas that animated it.
Because Lincoln was a politician in a democracy, he had to present his ideas to the public; a history of his career is in large part a history of his rhetoric. Rhetoric is how democratic politicians point with pride and view with alarm; how they sketch their visions and justify their deals. It is one of the most important ways by which they earn their reputations, win elections, and wield power.
The book has been divided into three parts.
*The first part of the book deals with Lincoln’s early life, his relationship with his biological father and introduction through books to the founding fathers of America.
*The second section deals with the intellectual and historical background of the making of Lincoln.
*The final, third part introduces in details the milieu and events of the civil war, eventual emancipation and finally the conspiracy and death of Lincoln.
Truth be told, there is a lot of Lincoln’s writing in this book — jotted down notes, state papers, private letters that were written for public consumption. There is even more of his speaking — orations before huge open-air crowds, stories told in small rooms. Because Lincoln was both self-educated and versatile, he drew on an assortment of models and genres: wit, common sense, poetry; fart jokes, Euclid, Byron.
Lincoln went from mocking the Bible as a teenager to channeling it as a rashly old man. But frequently he came back to the founders, the men who most inspired him.
This book is also a history of the afterlife of those grand Americans, his precursors — how their words and their reputes infiltrated into the 19th century, in great debates and in the frontier reading of a curious boy.
Other books on Lincoln have noted his interest in the founding fathers and how he looked back to them, but here, for the first time, a historian of the founding looks ahead to Lincoln.
This book, finally, is training—in thinking, feeling, and acting. The founding fathers were world-historical figures; so was Abraham Lincoln.
If we study how Lincoln connected with them, we can learn how to connect with them, and him, ourselves.
Eye-catching was his integrity. The sobriquet "Honest Abe Lincoln," which his fellow citizens fastened on him in his formative years was never lost.
This was something more than the precision of commercial truthfulness which forbade him to touch a penny of the funds that remained over from the wiped out post-office of New Salem, though the government was for years neglectful in the matter of settling up.
Honesty was indeed the best policy for Lincoln.
A most recommended book.
February 28, 2019
I'm not sure that Brookhiser ever proved his point completely that Lincoln really called on and looked back on the Founding Fathers constantly. In some speeches, decisions, and discussions, yes and in others, no, they were not his impetus.
Either way, it was a wonderful read for our current political times. Whether Lincoln did or not, maybe it is time that we call upon our Founding Fathers to direct us. (Now I'm totally picturing Washington and Jefferson Zombies, so not what I mean.)
Either way, it was a wonderful read for our current political times. Whether Lincoln did or not, maybe it is time that we call upon our Founding Fathers to direct us. (Now I'm totally picturing Washington and Jefferson Zombies, so not what I mean.)
August 11, 2017
Well researched but at times comes off like a college essay - the analysis is obvious and not super deep.
March 10, 2024
I bought Founders’ Son in maybe 2016 or 2017, but I finally decided to read it, as I have always been intrigued by Abraham Lincoln’s life and story. But I’m not a super avid reader, so this was the first biography of Lincoln that I’ve read. Because of this, I didn’t have many expectations going into it. I was just excited to learn some new aspects of his life, relationships, politics, and presidency.
Overall, I enjoyed the author’s style of writing/storytelling. It was somewhat poetic, which deviated from my expectations of how a biography is typically written. Rather than a straightforward kind of storytelling, he weaved in and out with metaphors and anecdotes.
The reason I’m giving this book a lower rating (I started off higher, but I think I tend to be a slightly generous rater) is because of the occasional, subtle regard he seemed to confer to Confederates and the subtle denigration he seemed to display for radicals/abolitionists, namely John Brown. For example, he said “John Brown had been outside politics, a crackpot and a terrorist” (pg. 196), while sparing that kind of language for Confederate leaders and sympathizers. He also put John Brown in the same category as Preston Brooks, a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives who nearly beat abolitionist Republican Senator Charles Sumner to death for an anti-slavery speech that he gave: “maniacs like Preston Brooks and John Brown” (pg. 281). Lastly, of John Wilkes Booth, he said: “Here at last in John Wilkes Booth was the towering genius Lincoln had foreseen in 1838” (pg. 295).
I also found chapters fifteen and sixteen to be a little preachy, with some potential projection of his religious views onto Lincoln (though I’m not denying that Lincoln had some evolution on his religious beliefs).
So, even though this was a pretty compelling read for me, I somewhat regrettably give this book 2 stars.
Overall, I enjoyed the author’s style of writing/storytelling. It was somewhat poetic, which deviated from my expectations of how a biography is typically written. Rather than a straightforward kind of storytelling, he weaved in and out with metaphors and anecdotes.
The reason I’m giving this book a lower rating (I started off higher, but I think I tend to be a slightly generous rater) is because of the occasional, subtle regard he seemed to confer to Confederates and the subtle denigration he seemed to display for radicals/abolitionists, namely John Brown. For example, he said “John Brown had been outside politics, a crackpot and a terrorist” (pg. 196), while sparing that kind of language for Confederate leaders and sympathizers. He also put John Brown in the same category as Preston Brooks, a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives who nearly beat abolitionist Republican Senator Charles Sumner to death for an anti-slavery speech that he gave: “maniacs like Preston Brooks and John Brown” (pg. 281). Lastly, of John Wilkes Booth, he said: “Here at last in John Wilkes Booth was the towering genius Lincoln had foreseen in 1838” (pg. 295).
I also found chapters fifteen and sixteen to be a little preachy, with some potential projection of his religious views onto Lincoln (though I’m not denying that Lincoln had some evolution on his religious beliefs).
So, even though this was a pretty compelling read for me, I somewhat regrettably give this book 2 stars.
September 2, 2021
So I’d been wanting to read this because I'd heard it recommended a number of times as one of the best of Brookhiser’s books and a favorite on Lincoln because of the way Brookhiser traces Lincoln’s thinking back to the Founders and his reliance on the founding documents to support his thoughts and actions.
I was mildly disappointed. There is nothing wrong with the book and I think Brookhiser’s style is very appealing. It’s light, but substantive for the average or popular reader. I particularly enjoyed the textual analysis of some of Lincoln’s speeches. I was already of the opinion that Lincoln is right up there with Washington as one of our two most important presidents, and this book absolutely confirmed it. The book does a good job at what it aims to do and for the audience it aims to reach. I am just not that audience. I have frequently railed against historians who only write for other historians in tomes filled with byzantine footnotes and jargon about race, class, and gender. I certainly wasn’t hoping for that, but I don’t think I really learned anything new from reading this book. Probably because it is a subject in which I am very interested and about which I already have a fairly expansive understanding. That is not Brookhiser’s fault.
I feel like I should give this book a higher rating because it would be an excellent book for the average person who is interested in both the Founding and Lincoln and wants to see how the eternal ideas on which the United States is founded can be traced through history. For my own reading pleasure I’d give it a 2 or 3 for the general public a 4. And not because I’m super smart or anything, but I’ve spent a lot of time reading and studying these ideas in order to teach them and just didn’t feel reading it was time well spent.
I was mildly disappointed. There is nothing wrong with the book and I think Brookhiser’s style is very appealing. It’s light, but substantive for the average or popular reader. I particularly enjoyed the textual analysis of some of Lincoln’s speeches. I was already of the opinion that Lincoln is right up there with Washington as one of our two most important presidents, and this book absolutely confirmed it. The book does a good job at what it aims to do and for the audience it aims to reach. I am just not that audience. I have frequently railed against historians who only write for other historians in tomes filled with byzantine footnotes and jargon about race, class, and gender. I certainly wasn’t hoping for that, but I don’t think I really learned anything new from reading this book. Probably because it is a subject in which I am very interested and about which I already have a fairly expansive understanding. That is not Brookhiser’s fault.
I feel like I should give this book a higher rating because it would be an excellent book for the average person who is interested in both the Founding and Lincoln and wants to see how the eternal ideas on which the United States is founded can be traced through history. For my own reading pleasure I’d give it a 2 or 3 for the general public a 4. And not because I’m super smart or anything, but I’ve spent a lot of time reading and studying these ideas in order to teach them and just didn’t feel reading it was time well spent.
December 23, 2016
Title: Founders Son: Life and Times of Abraham Lincoln
Author: Richard Brookhiser
Place of Publication: United States of America
Publisher: Perseus Books USA
Date of Publication: 2014
Number of Pages: 347
ISBN: 978-0-465-03294-5
INTRODUCTION
FOUNDERS SON: LIFE AND TIMES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN is a biography of Americas 16th president. Its 347 pages are divided into five parts – an introduction and an epilogue start and end it but the meat of the book is in parts one, two and three.
PART ONE comprises of six chapters which basically deal with Lincoln’s early life, his relationship with his biological father and introduction through books to the founding fathers of America. Here we find out that Lincoln had only two years of formal education and taught himself (self-made) every other thing he achieved academically including geometry, surveying and Law. As a boy he worked for free as a farm hand for his father and any other person his father loaned him to. His dad kept his wages which he hated and that influenced him to reason that anyone who works should keep the rewards of the labour of his hands. To him ‘anyone’ included black people. He left his father at age 21 and moved to Illinois were he became a post master and thus quite popular. He joined the Whig party and contested for state congress and won. In 1840 Lincoln and his party men wanted to block a bill in the Illinois legislature so they chose to absent themselves so the house couldn’t form a quorum. They miscalculated in their counting as the few Whigs in the house added to the Democrats could indeed form a quorum. Upon realising this Lincoln and his party men attempted to leave the chamber but the Democrats shut the doors firmly locking them in. So Lincoln and his crew jumped out the second floor window! So a quorum couldn’t be formed! In 1842 Lincoln chided James Shields, a member of the Democratic Party. Shields was not amused and challenged him to a duel. Lincoln accepted and his choice of weapon was the Calvary broad swords to take advantage of his long arms. Both parties finally resolved just shortly before combat. In the same year Lincoln and two other famous Whig Party men found themselves in a 3 way battle for an empty congressional seat. To avoid bad blood the contest for the seat will bring he made a compromise that the seat would be rotated amongst all parties, each taking a 2 year term, Lincoln’s term came in 1846.
PART TWO takes us to 1854 when Lincoln begins to set himself up for higher office or at least as the man to solve America’s great moral dilemma – slavery. He debated and spoke against it anywhere its proponents spoke for it. His message was simple, accept slavery where it was as a necessity, not because it was right, stop it from spreading anywhere else within or outside the continent and at some later time send free slaves somewhere else, probably Liberia. Finally he said America had to accept that Blacks were men also. In 1858 he ran for senate in what was the most keenly contested senatorial election in America’s history and lost. His Whig Party collapsed after the death of its seating president so a new Republican Party was created and Lincoln joined it. In November 1860 he ran for office of the president and won to the anger of southern pro slave states. On 20th December the state of South Carolina resolved that “the union subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved.” By January 1861 5 states followed suit, Mississippi on the 9th, Florida on the 10th, Alabama on the 11th, Georgia on the 19th and Louisiana on the 26th. On the 11th of February Lincoln left for Washington by train, he gave a short farewell speech saying ‘…I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with me and aid me, I must fail. Let us pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now.” On 23rd February, the day he arrived Washington, the state of Texas ratified an ordinance of secession. On the 4th of March 1861, Lincoln was inaugurated.
PART THREE tells the story of the civil war and eventual emancipation. On the 15th of April 1861 Lincoln raised a militia to fight the secessionists, 2 days after this Virginia State seceded and over the next month Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina followed. 11 out of 34 States had left the union in his first month in office. The union forces marched south in an operation they tagged ‘The Anaconda Plan’ to bring back the recalcitrant states and full scale war broke out. January 1, 1863 saw Lincoln announcing the Emancipation Proclamation which basically freed slaves in southern states and suggested a phased freeing of slaves in union states which will see the last blacks freed by 1900. Blacks in the union states are also allowed to enlist and fight in the union army with one of them, Martin Delany, rising to become a Major. November 1864 was an election year and Lincoln won re-election becoming the first president to do that since the founding fathers.
April 2nd 1865 saw the fall of Richmond, the confederate capital, without fanfare Lincoln went to see things for himself, some now free black women who recognised him fell at his feet to kiss them, he forbade them and said, ‘that is not right, you must kneel only to God.’ The legendary confederate general, Robert E. Lee surrendered to the union commander Ulysses Grant on the 9th of April by President Lincolns orders they were allowed to keep their arms and horses for spring farming. He is reported to have said ‘this generosity will have a happy effect on his men.’
Lincoln didn’t fully understand how deep the sentiment of right to own slaves ran in the south, he thought it was an elitist feeling. On the 11th of April while addressing a crowd in front of the White House to celebrate the victory. He mooted that blacks who were intelligent enough and who had fought in the war be given voting rights. One of the men in the crowd looked at his friend and said “that is nigger citizenship, this is the last speech he will ever make.” That man was John Wilkes Booth, on the 15th of April he shot Lincoln in the back of the head as he watched a play in the theatre. Booth ran away and eluded capture for 11 days before he was tracked down to a barn in Virginia and killed.
The death of Lincoln postponed the right of blacks to vote and enjoy full rights of citizens well into the 20th century.
This book is gripping. A well told story.
From somewhere out there,
Michael Ombu
Author: Richard Brookhiser
Place of Publication: United States of America
Publisher: Perseus Books USA
Date of Publication: 2014
Number of Pages: 347
ISBN: 978-0-465-03294-5
INTRODUCTION
FOUNDERS SON: LIFE AND TIMES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN is a biography of Americas 16th president. Its 347 pages are divided into five parts – an introduction and an epilogue start and end it but the meat of the book is in parts one, two and three.
PART ONE comprises of six chapters which basically deal with Lincoln’s early life, his relationship with his biological father and introduction through books to the founding fathers of America. Here we find out that Lincoln had only two years of formal education and taught himself (self-made) every other thing he achieved academically including geometry, surveying and Law. As a boy he worked for free as a farm hand for his father and any other person his father loaned him to. His dad kept his wages which he hated and that influenced him to reason that anyone who works should keep the rewards of the labour of his hands. To him ‘anyone’ included black people. He left his father at age 21 and moved to Illinois were he became a post master and thus quite popular. He joined the Whig party and contested for state congress and won. In 1840 Lincoln and his party men wanted to block a bill in the Illinois legislature so they chose to absent themselves so the house couldn’t form a quorum. They miscalculated in their counting as the few Whigs in the house added to the Democrats could indeed form a quorum. Upon realising this Lincoln and his party men attempted to leave the chamber but the Democrats shut the doors firmly locking them in. So Lincoln and his crew jumped out the second floor window! So a quorum couldn’t be formed! In 1842 Lincoln chided James Shields, a member of the Democratic Party. Shields was not amused and challenged him to a duel. Lincoln accepted and his choice of weapon was the Calvary broad swords to take advantage of his long arms. Both parties finally resolved just shortly before combat. In the same year Lincoln and two other famous Whig Party men found themselves in a 3 way battle for an empty congressional seat. To avoid bad blood the contest for the seat will bring he made a compromise that the seat would be rotated amongst all parties, each taking a 2 year term, Lincoln’s term came in 1846.
PART TWO takes us to 1854 when Lincoln begins to set himself up for higher office or at least as the man to solve America’s great moral dilemma – slavery. He debated and spoke against it anywhere its proponents spoke for it. His message was simple, accept slavery where it was as a necessity, not because it was right, stop it from spreading anywhere else within or outside the continent and at some later time send free slaves somewhere else, probably Liberia. Finally he said America had to accept that Blacks were men also. In 1858 he ran for senate in what was the most keenly contested senatorial election in America’s history and lost. His Whig Party collapsed after the death of its seating president so a new Republican Party was created and Lincoln joined it. In November 1860 he ran for office of the president and won to the anger of southern pro slave states. On 20th December the state of South Carolina resolved that “the union subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved.” By January 1861 5 states followed suit, Mississippi on the 9th, Florida on the 10th, Alabama on the 11th, Georgia on the 19th and Louisiana on the 26th. On the 11th of February Lincoln left for Washington by train, he gave a short farewell speech saying ‘…I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with me and aid me, I must fail. Let us pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now.” On 23rd February, the day he arrived Washington, the state of Texas ratified an ordinance of secession. On the 4th of March 1861, Lincoln was inaugurated.
PART THREE tells the story of the civil war and eventual emancipation. On the 15th of April 1861 Lincoln raised a militia to fight the secessionists, 2 days after this Virginia State seceded and over the next month Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina followed. 11 out of 34 States had left the union in his first month in office. The union forces marched south in an operation they tagged ‘The Anaconda Plan’ to bring back the recalcitrant states and full scale war broke out. January 1, 1863 saw Lincoln announcing the Emancipation Proclamation which basically freed slaves in southern states and suggested a phased freeing of slaves in union states which will see the last blacks freed by 1900. Blacks in the union states are also allowed to enlist and fight in the union army with one of them, Martin Delany, rising to become a Major. November 1864 was an election year and Lincoln won re-election becoming the first president to do that since the founding fathers.
April 2nd 1865 saw the fall of Richmond, the confederate capital, without fanfare Lincoln went to see things for himself, some now free black women who recognised him fell at his feet to kiss them, he forbade them and said, ‘that is not right, you must kneel only to God.’ The legendary confederate general, Robert E. Lee surrendered to the union commander Ulysses Grant on the 9th of April by President Lincolns orders they were allowed to keep their arms and horses for spring farming. He is reported to have said ‘this generosity will have a happy effect on his men.’
Lincoln didn’t fully understand how deep the sentiment of right to own slaves ran in the south, he thought it was an elitist feeling. On the 11th of April while addressing a crowd in front of the White House to celebrate the victory. He mooted that blacks who were intelligent enough and who had fought in the war be given voting rights. One of the men in the crowd looked at his friend and said “that is nigger citizenship, this is the last speech he will ever make.” That man was John Wilkes Booth, on the 15th of April he shot Lincoln in the back of the head as he watched a play in the theatre. Booth ran away and eluded capture for 11 days before he was tracked down to a barn in Virginia and killed.
The death of Lincoln postponed the right of blacks to vote and enjoy full rights of citizens well into the 20th century.
This book is gripping. A well told story.
From somewhere out there,
Michael Ombu
August 31, 2024
It's a good writer and a good book, but instead of focusing on Lincoln's life, we have a part where it is for Washington,Thomas Payne, and Jefferson. Well I get it, how Lincoln idolized this 3 (not really ), and I really thought the book was focused really on Lincoln. I really like how the writer dedicates a whole part for the emancipation proclamation and others. I'm kinda disappointed that the endings were about Lincoln getting shot, the whole part or page , is just too simple. But yeah I liked the ending where they give perspective on Alexander Stephen.
Well the book is interesting from the youth to death. And I recommend this book to beginners. Or those people who're trying to read the biography genre. In 400+ pages you get what you want.
Well the book is interesting from the youth to death. And I recommend this book to beginners. Or those people who're trying to read the biography genre. In 400+ pages you get what you want.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2018
This is a unique biography about Lincoln in that the author starts with a premise, then examines very specific portions of Lincoln's life that back up the premise. The author sees Lincoln as the natural successor to the founding fathers of the USA, and examines Lincoln's actions in the light of their consistency with the aims of the founding fathers.
Probably not the first biography someone looking to learn about Lincoln should read, but it is a very interesting treatise for those already familiar with Lincoln's life and politics.
Probably not the first biography someone looking to learn about Lincoln should read, but it is a very interesting treatise for those already familiar with Lincoln's life and politics.
November 23, 2023
Recommended by one of my favorite podcasters, and with a personal interest in U.S. presidents, I picked up this volume. Certainly not a standard bio. Yes, we learn much about the subject's life. But the focus is on how the founding fathers of the U.S. impacted his worldview, work, and governance. A chapter toward the end is devoted to his religiosity (the ultimate Founding Father God). Of course, much is said about Lincoln's evolution on slavery, that I found particularly insightful.
Regardless of how well versed one in regarding Lincoln, this book is a unique contribution to the study of one of our greatest presidents.
Regardless of how well versed one in regarding Lincoln, this book is a unique contribution to the study of one of our greatest presidents.
June 14, 2024
more to Abraham Lincoln than I knew
Tough read to start but always seemed to be an honest look at Lincoln, his life, his faults and foibles along with his strengths. Also an honest look at the north and the south, the politicians, the racism of all including Lincoln and yet Lincoln never seemed to waver that no human should own another human and that the African slaves in the US were human.
Tough read to start but always seemed to be an honest look at Lincoln, his life, his faults and foibles along with his strengths. Also an honest look at the north and the south, the politicians, the racism of all including Lincoln and yet Lincoln never seemed to waver that no human should own another human and that the African slaves in the US were human.
Read
January 29, 2021Sarcastically abbreviated humour used by the author to write this book. Well read many kinds of autobiographies earlier but this book had the context para-phrasing done very vehemently.
Let be it the Childhood life, Election clashes, Confederates War and let it be a case of specifying language enumerate results were obtained.
Let be it the Childhood life, Election clashes, Confederates War and let it be a case of specifying language enumerate results were obtained.
January 14, 2019
Just picked this off the shelf, so I had no idea what I was getting into. The premise follows Abraham's life and his relationship to the founding fathers through his writing and speeches. The book closely follows that line and does it excellently, but it's just not my cup of tea.
January 25, 2022
This book is the best in connecting my two historical interests Abraham Lincoln and the American Revolution! I really enjoyed the entire book and look forward to re-reading it!
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