6/14/2005

Fourth wave in Lincoln studies?

I get a little nervous when the marketing department of a trade house tells me I am holding in my hands "the most comprehensive study ever written of the thought of America’s most revered president" - What Lincoln BelievedThe Values and Convictions of America's Greatest President.

My friends, you must have written that for people who have never before read a comprehensive study.

Newsday points out that
Michael Lind, author of What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America's Greatest President ... proposes a fourth Lincoln, who might be called the Great Federalist-Whig. The great what? The Federalists and Whigs were the political parties of Lind's real heroes, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay ... Clay(1777- 1852), who was speaker of the House and secretary of state, is the most obscure today. But to Lincoln he was the most important. As he said during the first year of his presidency, "I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig."
Uh oh. Trouble from James McPherson:
The title of this book is incomplete. It should be What Michael Lind Believes Abraham Lincoln Believed.
And Lind has other detractors, too, quite animated ones.