Lincoln's Last Speech: Wartime Reconstruction and the Crisis of Reunion(Pivotal Moments in American History)

On April 11, 1865, Abraham Lincoln gave his final speech to thousands gathered in the rain outside the executive mansion in Washington, D.C. Coming two days after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and a week after the fall of Richmond, the crowd expected a victory oration. Instead, they heard the President's ideas about how best to proceed in returning the seceded states to "proper practical relation " with the national government and how to advance the status of freedmen in a nation soon to be without slavery. After Lincoln's endorsement of limited black suffrage, one listener had heard enough. Walking away, John Wilkes Booth remarked, "That is the last speech he will ever make. " Three days later, he made good on his threat. Significant in part because it was his last, Lincoln's April 11th speech is also particularly important for providing us with the president's final public thoughts on the problem of reconstruction, a process, as he said that night, "fraught with difficulty. " In Lincoln's Last Speech, renowned historian and author Louis P. Masur uses the occasion of this speech to trace the debate over reconstruction policies--which, he shows, began not with war's end, but with the war's beginning. Masur reveals how, from the start of the war, restoring the union was foremost on Lincoln's mind, and between 1861 and 1865 he pressed multiple plans of action. Even as battles raged, and the odds of victory continued to shift, the aftermath of war was never far from the thoughts of northern statesmen. Masur traces the evolution of Lincoln's ideas and the debate over reconstruction during the war, from the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction on December 8, 1863 to the Wade-Davis bill pushed through Congress by radical Republicans in July 2 1864, and Lincoln's resulting pocket veto. In addition to political reconstruction, Masur examines the questions around social reconstruction, the plight of the freedmen and the debate over the place of blacks in American society. And he considers the implications of Lincoln's speech after April 1865, when Andrew Johnson assumed office and the battles over reconstruction ensued. Filling an important gap in the Lincoln literature, Lincoln's Last Speech illuminates the disputed question of reconstruction, from the earliest days of the Civil War up through the president's final address, and allows us to retrace the path that brought him and the nation to reunion.

Table of Contents:
Prologue: "Gladness of Heart" Chapter 1: "A Large Share of Thought From the First" Chapter 2: "Proper, Practical Relation" Chapter 3: "A Pernicious Abstraction" Chapter 4: "A Plan of Re-construction" Chapter 5: "We, the Loyal People, Differ" Chapter 6: "Fraught With Difficulty" Chapter 7: "A Righteous and Speedy Peace" Chapter 8: "The Egg is to the Fowl" Afterword: "The Present 'Situation' " Appendix: Text of Lincoln's Last Speech, April 11, 1865 Acknowledgments Notes Index

About the Author :
Louis P. Masur is Distinguished Professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers University. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, The Civil War: A Concise History and Lincoln's Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union.

Review :
"When he spoke from the White House on April 11, 1865, Lincoln effectively closed one chapter of American history and began another. Yet this essential speech has been overshadowed by the great events surrounding it on either side, and our knowledge that its author could not follow its prescriptions. Fortunately, that omission has been corrected. Thanks to Louis P. Masur, we now have the final word on Lincoln's last speech."--Edward L. Widmer, director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, author of Ark of the Liberties: America and the World "A concise, useful analysis of Lincoln's generous hope for postwar America, seen against the failures of the actual Reconstruction that followed."--Kirkus Reviews "In Lincoln's Last Speech, Louis P. Masur, a professor at Rutgers University...does an excellent job of explaining this speech's importance. It is a complex story, and it comprehensively portrays the mix of political sophistication and kindness that made Lincoln a great president."--Dallas Morning News "On April 11, 1865 President Lincoln delivered his last speech. His words that evening revealed much about his views on reconstructing the south."--Dayton Daily News