The Enduring Lincoln

“Lincoln in His Time and Ours: A Public Symposium” was held by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the American Studies Program and History Department of Columbia University to observe the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth in 1809 and to mark the publication of Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World, edited by Eric Foner (W.W. Norton & Company). Moderator David Blight noted that, in 1893 Frederick Douglass declared there was nothing new to say about Lincoln - but, as Bright observes, “nothing in Lincoln scholarship is ever settled.” Topics included President Lincoln’s evolving ideas on faith; the mythology of his boyhood, marriage, and family life; and parallels to civil liberties issues with post September 11 constitutional dilemmas. close