It’s curious that we’ve taken to calling the section of a book where the author expresses gratitude the “acknowledgments.” Strictly speaking, an “acknowledgment” is not a statement of thanks but an acceptance of the truthfulness of something.
But Diana Schaub understands the importance of word choice. So, it’s not surprising that she opens the acknowledgments of "His Greatest Speeches: How Lincoln Moved The Nation" with a statement worthy of the name. “There is no one who walked the earth with the sole exception of Jesus,” she notes, “who is more written about than Abraham Lincoln.”
Schaub is a professor of political science at Loyola University Maryland who has written extensively about Lincoln’s prudence, and it is a testament to her skill as a writer and theorist that she could have opened her book with this acknowledgment and still been in the clear. Yes, a dizzying amount has been written about America’s sixteenth president. But "His Greatest Speeches" is sure to enjoy a prominent place in the canon of Lincoln scholarship. At a time when Americans are fretting about a second civil war, Schaub’s Lincoln reminds us that we’ve been down this road before – and gives us hope for the future.
"His Greatest Speeches" contains close readings of Lincoln’s Lyceum Address, Gettysburg Address, and Second Inaugural. In addition to unpacking the complex moral and political lessons at the heart of these deceptively simple speeches, Schaub reads them as part of a coherent whole. She notes that all of “Lincoln’s speeches were directed toward recovery of the nation’s integrity, re-conjoining word and deed, promise and performance.”
Taken together, the speeches analyzed in this volume show Lincoln’s lifelong engagement with the American Founding. The Lyceum Address calls for “reverence” for political institutions and looks back to 1787 and the Constitution. The Gettysburg Address famously begins by looking back to 1776 and is itself a sustained engagement with the Declaration of Independence.
Provocatively, Schaub argues that Lincoln’s Second Inaugural speech “deserves to be considered his 1619 address.” Her discussion of the controversial New York Times project is illustrative of her approach to current events – she asserts Lincoln’s contemporary relevance while showing how he anticipated and resolved many of our current political disagreements.
By demonstrating Lincoln’s understanding that America’s “original sin” predated the Founding, Schaub throws down a challenge both to those who would dismiss the “1619 question” out of hand and those looking to make 1619 America’s defining year. Tracing the Second Inaugural’s inner logic, Schaub reveals Lincoln’s case for the enduring importance of 1776 and reminds contemporary readers of the importance of acting “with charity towards all.”
But as Schaub shows, even Lincoln knew the limits of America’s Founding. In the Lyceum Address, he warns that the “influence” of revolutionary tales on the civic mind “cannot be what it heretofore has been.” At Gettysburg, he reduces the Declaration’s “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal” to a mere “proposition.”
Schaub notes that Lincoln here is engaged in a bit of geometric word play. “A self-evident truth is an axiom,” she writes, noting that “an axiom doesn’t require proof.” But “unlike an axiom, a proposition requires proof. That’s why one must be ‘dedicated’ to it.” Lincoln is not, Schaub argues, qualifying the truth at the heart of the nation. Rather, “he wants to highlight the needfulness of translating an abstract truth into concrete political form.”
Once again, Schaub uses Lincoln’s statesmanship to offer perspective on our present discontents. Conservatives are reminded that appeals to the Founding are not always the deus ex machina they believe or hope them to be. Progressives are reminded that our occasional failure to live out the Declaration’s self-evident truths does not make them any less true – it simply shows that we need to work harder.
These are some of the broader points Schaub outlines in this slim volume. But "His Greatest Speeches" is ultimately a close reading, and this review would be incomplete without a word on how Schaub reads Lincoln.
Close reading is a tricky game. Like scripture and modernist novels, great political writing is fertile ground for readers with a tendency to interpolate. Since Lincoln is the most written-about American of all time, he is also one of the most misinterpreted. By focusing on a particular turn of phrase or coincidence of context, commentators can “find” almost anything they want in Lincoln’s writings.
Schaub redeems the close reading of Lincoln from the stain left by those who find justifications for their most outlandish beliefs in the Great Emancipator’s speeches. Her commitment to honest interpretation of the text is clear as she breaks down the number of paragraphs, sentences, and personal pronouns Lincoln uses in order to shed new light on a given speech.
She uses outside information sparingly but effectively, always to show how her more original interpretations are grounded in history and fact. For instance, Schaub follows her discussion of Lincoln’s geometric gambit at Gettysburg with a quote from an 1859 letter in which Lincoln discusses Jefferson’s self-evident truths in terms of Euclidean geometry – thus proving that Lincoln was speaking through the prism of a mathematical proof.
Just as Schaub’s reading of Lincoln’s corpus illuminates core truths about American democracy, her close reading casts each speech in a new light. Throughout the book we see how Lincoln manipulates grammar and syntax to subdue or channel his audience’s passions. Specifically, Schaub shows how Lincoln – the only president to hold a patent – uses scientific language to discuss complex and inflammatory issues like slavery. Schaub also traces the implications of Lincoln’s frequent Biblical allusions, meant both to move his audiences and situate the destiny of the United States in a broader Christian cosmology.
It is hardly surprising that Schaub offers such a probing, compelling reading of Lincoln. Though a gifted writer, she is first and foremost a teacher. Only someone who has spent years unlocking Lincoln’s speeches for students could do so for readers as deftly as Schaub does in "His Greatest Speeches".
Lincoln ends his Lyceum Address by calling for Americans to cultivate “general intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.” These “pillars of the temple of liberty,” he knew, could be constructed only through robust civic education. With "His Greatest Speeches", Diana Schaub invites citizens and statesmen to learn the lessons Lincoln taught – and preserve the country for which he gave the last full measure of devotion.
Tim Rice is associate editor of The Washington Free Beacon.