Lincoln Persuasion

• List of Charts and TablesAcknowledgmentsEditor's NoteIntroduction to the Book1The Lincoln Myth Reconsidered9Lincoln's Ulterior Motives12Lincoln's Devotion to Liberty and Union16Lincoln's Principle of Action18Lincoln's Motives and Principle21The Problem of Political Conflict: Lincoln vs. Douglas26Lincoln's Principle as a Political Solution312American Political Culture: Liberal Consensus or Liberal Polarity?35American Exceptionalism: The Consensus Thesis36A Philosophical Critique: Multiple Meanings and Descriptions48The Bipolarity in American Liberalism50The Liberal Polarity: Conflicting Dispositions633Adams and Jefferson: A Shared Liberalism71Friendship, Rivalry, Friendship71The Problem of Adams's Liberalism73The Multiple Declensions of New England Culture76The Founding Synthesis78Equality and the Liberal Polarity904Adams, Jefferson, and the Slavery Paradox95The Slavery Paradox96Liberalism and the Issue of Slavery1055William Leggett: Process, Utility, and Laissez-Faire124Jacksonian Politics and Humanist Liberal Principles124Laissez-Faire: Leggett's Attenuated Republicanism127Leggett's Humanist Liberalism: Preferences and Process130Slavery1336Stephen A. Douglas and Popular Sovereignty140Jacksonian Politics and Humanist Liberalism141Douglas's Attenuated Republicanism145Preference Coordination148Slavery1507Martin Van Buren's Humanist Liberal Theory of Party154Jacksonian Democrat and Humanist Liberal155Van Buren's Humanist Liberal Theory of Party158Van Buren's Attenuated Republicanism169Slavery172Van Buren's Failure: Slavery and Preference Coordination1798John Quincy Adams191Adams's Whiggish Loyalties192Adams and Slavery196Adams's Liberalism198Reform Liberalism and Politics2059Lincoln and the North's Commitment to Liberty and Union222Douglas: Negative Liberty and a Quantitative Union223Webster: Positive Liberty and a Qualitative Union226Lincoln on Liberty and Union: A Conceptual Connection230Conclusion: Rule Ambiguity and Liberal Politics24010Lincoln's Political Humanitarianism: Moral Reform and the Covenant Tradition244Lincoln's Political Ethic245Lincoln's Protestant Ethic258Conclusion: Lincoln's Piety282Epilogue284References287Index299

"A complex, fascinating, and illuminating book. Its argument, to oversimplify, is that, perhaps better than any American leader in our country's history, Lincoln was able to combine a passionate commitment to changing the country with the political realism required to change the country without tearing it apart."--Father Andrew Greeley, Chicago Sun-Times "A useful example of the effective use of executive power in its account of how Lincoln succeeded in addressing the central failing of his day--slavery. Lincoln, Greenstone argues, created a moral consensus that placed the highest value on the preservation of the Union, a position with wide support in the North, while skillfully improvising a policy reflecting the principles in the Declaration of Independence that implicitly called for eliminating slavery."--Thomas Byrne Edsall, The New York Review of Books "The central element in the Lincoln persuasion is a helf-secular, half-religious drive for redemption, a reformist politics aware of its limit. Lincoln's genius, Greenstone avers, was his ability to fashion out of the crisis of the union a solution which began to realize the nation's original promise of freedom... a sustained tour de force which illuminates a good piece of American history. The book is, of course, utterly relevant in a society divided by conflict over the boundaries of market and state, private interests and public solidarities, entitlements and responsibilities."--Norman Birnbaum, Contemporary Sociology "The Lincoln Persuasion is one of the most important works in American political culture in the past fifty years."--Philip Abbott, The Review of Politics