Josh Glancy
The Great Emancipator
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
By Eric Foner
W W Norton & Co 426pp £21 order from our bookshop
When Barack Obama took to the stage in Chicago’s Grant Park in November 2008 to make his presidential acceptance speech, it was no great surprise when he turned to the words of Abraham Lincoln as he sought to emphasise his desire for bipartisanship. ‘We are not enemies, but friends,’ he told his Republican opponents; ‘though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection’. The quote was written into the speech on the advice of Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, who told the speechwriters to ‘figure out a good Lincoln quote to bring it all together’.
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