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Lincoln, New York City, and Cooper Union

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Mathew Brady, February 27, 1860, Public Domain, Wikimedia CommonsIn February 1860, the western-bred Abraham Lincoln must have been astonished by the hustle and bustle around lower New York City. Having crossed the Hudson River from Jersey City to Manhattan, Lincoln made his way to the Astor House, one of most luxurious hotels in New York City, conveniently located near City Hall and Publishers Row (aka, Newspaper Row or Printing House Square) housing the city’s most important newspapers. New York City had grown by over fifty percent just in the last decade, many of whom were immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and other European nations. If Lincoln’s room was on the ground floor of the Astor House, he would have looked out on St. Paul’s Chapel, built in 1766 and where George Washington attended services immediately after taking the oath of office as the first president of the United States. No doubt Lincoln would have looked into the chapel. Today, from a vantage point on Broadway, you can see the new One World Trade Center looming behind the Chapel’s historic spire. From the other side, standing in the burying ground facing the skyscraper, is a “Bell of Hope” rung every year on September 11 to reflect both the mourning of that day and the Chapel’s role as a refuge during that warm, clear cataclysmic day in 2001.

Lincoln’s day was less devastating but also less warm. The weather was frigid and light snow was falling, but the Young Men’s Committee who had taken over sponsorship of his Cooper Union presence took him around Manhattan to see the sights. One stop was Mathew Brady’s photographic emporium, now housed in a temporary studio at 643 Broadway while his new studio was being prepared. Brady was already a celebrity in his own right, and having your photo taken by Brady was quickly becoming a necessity for any up-and-coming politician or social climber. This fit well with Lincoln, who had embraced the new technology of photography within a few years of its invention and had made an effort to have a photograph taken whenever he did anything noteworthy. This certainly fit the requirements and so Lincoln sat for a series of photos, one of the best decisions he would make. Not only would the Cooper Union address itself be widely published in the newspapers, but Brady would also reproduce one of these photos on the new carte-de-visite format, enabling thousands of copies to be made, sold, and broadly circulated. While many historians today refer to Cooper Union as “the speech that made Lincoln president,” the Brady photograph accentuated that by putting a face in front of the public at large. To these two I would add a third component that worked in synergy to make Lincoln president – publication of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in book form. And, of course, there was his post-Cooper Union tour of New England.

Having expected to speech at Beecher’s church to a religiously abolitionist crowd, Lincoln begged away from his tour guides and the many impromptu visitors to lock himself in his hotel room and edit his speech for an audience likely to expect a more erudite speech. Eventually he was escorted by carriage to Cooper Union, which despite the snow was reasonably well attended, about 1,500 people. He was introduced by William Cullen Bryant. Starting slowly, as was his habit, he quickly got into his material and held the audience enrapt for the next one and half hours.

I wrote previously about the gist of the speech, which you can read in this earlier post.

[Photo credit: By Mathew Brady, February 27, 1860 – Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons, ID: cph 3a0910]

Fire of Genius

 

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Abraham Lincoln Goes to New York: Albany, NY, That Is

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By German, Christopher S. - Library of Congress, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25149728The newly bearded President-Elect Abraham Lincoln is making his way from Springfield, Illinois to Washington for his inauguration as president of the United States. But today, February 18, 1861, he was spending an eventful day traveling to Albany, New York.

It was a long train ride, having left Springfield on February 11th, he had passed through pars of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and now to Buffalo, New York. He had spent the day yesterday in Buffalo with former President Millard Fillmore, joining him at church before picking up Mrs. Lincoln and dining at Fillmore’s residence. Today, several hundred people and a military escort watch Lincoln’s train depart at the weary hour of 5:45 am. New-York Tribune editor Horace Greeley is on board with Lincoln as the train makes stops in the New York towns of Batavia, Rochester (where Frederick Douglass may or may not have seen him), Clyde, Syracuse, Utica, Little Falls, Fonda, Amsterdam, and Schenectady. NY Governor Edwin D. Morgan has assigned five members of his staff to accompany Lincoln, who dines in a special car fitted for dinner on a train used a few months previously by the Prince of Wales (Lincoln’s son, Robert, is not so complementarily labeled, the “Prince of Rails”).

At Syracuse, a crowd of 10,000 waits by a platform erected in front of the Globe Hotel, only to be disappointed when Lincoln speaks from the back of train instead. By this time, he is exhausted and, while he acknowledges remarks by the mayor of Utica, does not rise to speak on a platform built for that purpose in Schenectady.

But then there is Albany, capital of the state. After exchanging short speeches on the train platform with Mayor George H. Thatcher, Lincoln rides to the state Capitol to be welcomed by the governor. Here he addresses a joint meeting of the state legislature, saying:

“It is true that while I hold myself without mock modesty, the humblest of all individuals that have ever been elevated to the Presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform than any one of them. . . . I still have confidence that the Almighty, the Maker of the Universe will . . . bring us through this as He has through all the other difficulties of our country.”

Then it is off to the Delavan House, his home for the evening, where he meets with Thurlow Weed (a William Seward handler) and is greeted by the Rail Splitters political club. A committee escorts him to call on various New York dignitaries and sightseeing. Afterwards, the Lincoln and Governor Morgan families have an evening meal at the governor’s mansion. But he isn’t done yet. At 9 pm he is back at the Delavan House for a levee (aka, a meet-and-greet party) at which he greets about 1,000 people. Then he also visits a separate levee held for ladies.

Finally, he can get some rest. But not much. He and Mrs. Lincoln will leave Albany at 7:45 am the next morning, and as reported by journalist Henry Villard, “grateful for safe deliverance and resolved never to return,” because a rivalry between the governor and members of the legislature for the honor of entertaining Lincoln has made their visit burdensome. Tomorrow the family will continue to New York City, making stops in Rhinebeck, Hudson, Poughkeepsie, Fishkill, and Peekskill before finally arriving in New York City mid-afternoon.

There is still a long way to go before getting to Washington. And there is a murder plot afoot trying to keep that from happening.

 

[Photo credit: By German, Christopher S. – Library of Congress, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25149728]

Fire of Genius

 

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Abraham Lincoln and the Slave Trader

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Abraham LincolnWhile Abraham Lincoln had a well-deserved reputation as a soft touch during the Civil War, readily finding excuses to offer mercy to Union soldiers who had fallen asleep or abandoned their posts, he also approved the hanging of the only slave trader ever to be executed by the United States. Captain Nathaniel Gordon was a repeat offender, caught with nearly 900 enslaved men, women, and children crammed into the tiny space below decks off the coast of Congo. But Gordon wasn’t particularly worried. For the first 40+ years of the law that made international slave trading illegal and punishable by death, no man was ever executed. Why now? And why by Lincoln?

Lincoln’s personal secretary, John Hay, once said that he was “amused at the eagerness with which the President caught at any fact which would justify him in saving the life” of a condemned man despite a War Department policy to use executions as a deterrent to other soldiers considering going absent without leave. Others also noted that Lincoln always leaned toward mercy. Even in his legal career, he called on lawyers to “discourage litigation” as “there will still be business enough.”

But while he often had a soft spot for minor offenses, he could be hard as stone in cases of brutality against women and breaking the law ending international slave trading. According to Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, Lincoln was “prompt to punish…outrages upon women” and other abuses. He could allow for mistakes, but not wanton cruelty.

Nathaniel Gordon had been captured in the act of transporting Africans to become slaves in August of 1860, months before Lincoln’s election as president. Of the 897 captives taken, 563 were children, which he preferred because they were unlikely to rise up to free themselves. His first trial ended in a split jury, the result of bribery, but in the second trial in September 1861 he was convicted and sentenced to death. Still, Gordon and his supporters expected that he would be given clemency, just as every slave trader before them had received. Indeed, there were hundreds of prominent politicians and merchants writing Lincoln on Gordon’s behalf.

On February 4, 1862, when the execution was nearing, Lincoln wrote a letter that caught many off-guard. Lincoln acknowledged the pressure put on him:

And whereas, a large number of respectable citizens have earnestly besought me to commute the said sentence of the said Nathaniel Gordon to a term of imprisonment for life, which application I have felt it to be my duty to refuse;

Anticipating that Gordon expected a much different outcome and thus had not fully prepared himself mentally for execution, Lincoln gave Gordon not a commutation, but a pause:

Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, have granted and do hereby grant unto him, the said Nathaniel Gordon, a respite of the above recited sentence, until Friday the twenty-first day of February, A.D. 1862, between the hours of twelve o’clock at noon and three o’clock in the afternoon of the said day, when the said sentence shall be executed.

In granting this respite, it becomes my painful duty to admonish the prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by Human Authority, he refer himself alone to the mercy of the common God and Father of all men.

Gordon was executed on the revised date.

Yes, Lincoln tended toward mercy. But he also understood that some crimes rose above the norm. They were crimes against humanity and required strong, definitive punishment as deterrent to similar choices by other actors. A common denominator was the cruelty, which Lincoln could not abide.

Nathaniel Gordon was the first slave trader to be executed. He was also the last. As the Civil War shifted toward ultimate United States victory over Confederate insurrectionists, Lincoln’s support would lead to the 13th Amendment banning slavery everywhere in the United States, now and forever. The work of reaching full equality would remain, as racist forces would continue – and still continue – to deny constitutional freedom and equality to large segments of Americans. Clearly, if he were alive today, Lincoln would be a force for freedom, for equality, and even more adamantly against insurrection and treason.

[I highly recommend a book by Ron Soodalter called Hanging Captain Gordon.]

[Photo from WikiMedia Commons]

Fire of Genius

 

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Abraham Lincoln and the Illinois & Michigan Canal That Made Chicago

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Illinois & Michigan CanalAbraham Lincoln was a steady proponent of Internal Improvements projects in Illinois. That said, there were problems. The few projects initiated randomly to encourage widespread district support resulted in a hodgepodge of disconnected rail lines, many of which ran only a few miles to nowhere in particular. Most projects simply disappeared.

The one notable exception was the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Lincoln had earlier proposed a Beardstown and Sangamon Canal, which was authorized but later abandoned when an engineering survey determined the cost to be at least four times the initial estimate. Lincoln again was the one who proposed the Illinois and Michigan canal bill in the state legislature, which passed by a 40–12 vote. As the financial crisis wiped out the possibility of more and more improvement projects, Lincoln narrowed in his focus to insist the Illinois and Michigan Canal be completed. He saw that canal as a vital cog in the machinery of commerce.

Lincoln realized much of the reason British industrialization was up to a century ahead of other western nations was their scientific tradition, a Protestant work ethic, a high degree of religious tolerance, ample supplies of coal, and efficient transportation networks of roads and canals. He saw the same dynamic with the Erie Canal, which ran for 363 miles from the upper Hudson River in Albany, New York, to Lake Erie. Now goods from Europe and New England could enter New York Harbor, travel up the Hudson River, and be transported across New York by a navigable canal rather than having to offload goods into small wagons prone to weather-induced delays. This ease of transportation helped New York become a hub of domestic and international commerce. It also facilitated the growth of central and northern Illinois, in particular Chicago, which grew from a small hamlet of two thousand to a thriving metropolis.

The Erie Canal was completed in 1825 under the direction of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton. Lincoln later told his close friend Joshua Speed that it was “his highest ambition to be the DeWitt Clinton of Illinois.” The soon-to-be governor of New York, William Seward, also favored internal improvements for his state and engineered development of the Genesee Valley Canal. Lincoln knew that the Erie Canal project had been ridiculed as “Clinton’s Folly,” but he understood the completed canal had been a huge success, carrying vast amounts of passenger and freight traffic and initiating an economic boom for the state. Lincoln saw the Illinois and Michigan Canal as accomplishing the same for Illinois.

The Illinois and Michigan Canal would run from Chicago to LaSalle, where it would connect via the Illinois River through to the Mississippi River. With the Erie Canal already bringing East Coast commerce into the Great Lakes, the new canal would effectively open up all of the northeast trade down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Lincoln believed the canal would stimulate substantial economic growth in Illinois as businesses grew in townships along the route and more settlers moved into the improved western economy. It would turn out to be a stimulus for the rapid growth of Chicago.

Lincoln approved the hiring of William Gooding, who had previously worked on the Erie Canal, to be chief engineer on the Illinois and Michigan. After his state legislative career ended, Lincoln went on to serve as a commissioner for the canal, from which perch he would deal with claims from businessmen and citizenry for many years. Mismanagement almost killed the canal, just as it was derailing other internal improvements in the state, but unlike other projects, the Illinois and Michigan Canal became a Lincoln success story. Construction began in 1836 and, after a hiatus caused by the financial panic of 1837, was completed in 1848, just in time for Lincoln to travel the canal on his way home after visiting Niagara Falls. Eventually sixty feet wide with towpaths on each edge for mules to pull barges through the canal, it provided a vital infrastructure for the economic growth of the region until it was replaced by the Illinois Waterway in 1933.

[Map photo from WikiMedia Commons; text adapted from Lincoln: The Fire of Genius]

Fire of Genius

 

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Lincoln and the Balloons of War

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Thaddeus Lowe balloonAbraham Lincoln was always interested in technology, so when the Civil War arrived as soon as he was inaugurated, he worked hard to convince the usually conservative military to employ the latest technological advances. One such advance caused him to look to the skies to give every advantage to Union troops. That was the use of balloons in war.

Researcher Charles M. Evans notes that Pennsylvanian John Wise is often credited with being the first American to make significant contributions to the science of ballooning, including atmospheric conditions and construction. He was joined early in the war by James Allen. But it was Thaddeus Lowe who had the most success engaging Lincoln and getting a contract to form an air corps. Lowe hooked up with Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry, and on June 11, 1861, they walked over to the White House impressed Lincoln enough to gain his support. Lincoln repeatedly tried to get his first secretary of war, Simon Cameron, and General-in-Chief Winfield Scott to employ Lowe. Lincoln wrote General Scott on July 25, 1861, saying, “Will Lieut. Genl. Scott please see Professor Lowe, once more about his balloon.” When Scott still failed to act, Lincoln reportedly became more assertive, ordering Scott to “facilitate his work in every way.” Lowe eventually fielded a dozen balloons and made over three thousand ascensions using tethered balloons inflated by portable hydrogen gas generators. Lincoln gave Lowe the civilian title of chief aeronaut of the Union Army.

Lowe was an effective self-promoter who knew whose favors to garner. Joseph Henry had gotten him in the front door, Lincoln had gotten him a contract with General Scott, and his greatest use of balloons for reconnaissance was during General McClellan’s Peninsula campaign. To ingratiate himself with McClellan, Lowe put a picture of the general on the back of one of his biggest balloons, the Intrepid. But Lowe used another gimmick—he ran a telegraph line to the tethered balloon to report back in real time enemy troop numbers and movements. To ensure he maintained connection with the highest authority, on June 16, 1861, Lowe lifted his balloon Enterprise up near the White House and sent a telegraph to Lincoln: “This point of observation commands an area near fifty miles in diameter. . . . I have the pleasure of sending you this first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station and in acknowledging indebtedness to your encouragement for the opportunity of demonstrating the availability of the science of aeronautics in the military service of the country.”

There were others who promoted balloons to Lincoln, although he quickly realized that some of them were cranks. Beginning early in 1861 and continuing throughout the Civil War, the prolific Edward L. Tippett sent many letters to Lincoln touting every possible invention, including balloons for warfare. One letter seemed to have caught Lincoln at a bad time in February 1865. In a long rambling letter, Tippett wanted the opportunity to demonstrate to Lincoln “the practicability; by a mathematical problem, easy to understand; of the absolute existence, of a self-moving machine, yet to be developed for the glory of God, and the happiness of the human family.” Unimpressed, Lincoln endorsed the outside of the envelope: “Tippett: Crazy Man.”

[Adapted from my book, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius]

[Photo of Intrepid balloon from WikiMedia Commons]

Fire of Genius

 

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The Year in a Writer’s Life – 2024

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David J. Kent with Norman Rockwell's "For the Defense" at Rockwell Museum, MAAs 2024 comes to an end, it’s time to recap how it all went in the writer’s life. At least for this one writer. Once again, it was a busy year, with some residual events related to Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, some new obligations, and some really big news (really!). You can check out my other year-end posts by reading about my year of traveling, my 2024 Lincoln book acquisitions, and soon, my year in reading.

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius was released in September two years ago, but I continued to do periodic presentations related to the book, even branching out into several new venues. For example, in May I gave a presentation on “Lincoln’s Influence on Science & Technology in the Civil War” to the York (PA) Civil War Round Table [Watch the Video]. Then in June, I presented on the book to the White House Historical Association in their History Happy Hour series [Watch the Video Here]. That was followed up in September with a presentation to the Henry Clay Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) [Watch the Video]. In October, I co-presented a talk on “Lincoln and the Election of 1864″ to the Lincoln Group of DC [Watch Video Here], which focused on the political intriguing that almost sabotaged the election. That was so popular that I did a solo follow up presentation diving into the (perhaps questionable) results of the election itself in a talk I called “The Election of 1864: Was the Election Stolen?”[Watch Video Here]. Then that presentation garnered the interest of the Tucson (Arizona) Civil War Round Table, so I presented a version of it for them in December. I also hosted several Lincoln Group of DC events, including the joint birthday event at Fort Myer by LGDC/CWRTDC featuring eminent Lincoln historian, Harold Holzer [C-SPAN Video Here].

However, I have to say my favorite presentation for the year was on February 12, when I had the privilege of performing (not just reading) the Gettysburg Address at the annual National Park Service birthday wreath laying event inside the main chamber of the Lincoln Memorial. I’ve attended these events in the past and laid the LGDC wreath, but this year I was asked to perform the Address, which was widely praised. The honor was second only to the privilege I had of emceeing the official Lincoln Memorial Centennial program in 2022.

I continued to write for the quarterly Lincolnian newsletter, for which I again wrote eight book reviews and several shorter articles. I also had several book reviews published in the Lincoln Herald journal. I continued to write for the Lincolnian.org website, now with over 220 articles to my credit (nearly half the total). I also wrote a few articles (in addition to the reviews) for the Lincolnian newsletter. Add in the dozens of articles each for this David J. Kent website and my Hot White Snow blog, plus the book reviews on the Abraham Lincoln Bibliography Project website, and I’ve done a lot of writing this year. There were a few mentions of me and Fire of Genius in media articles and an acknowledgement in a major Lincoln book, plus I wrote a piece for the Lincoln Forum Bulletin. At least two new reviews of my book were published in major media outlets. This year also gave me my second “back cover blurb,” this time for the book, Black Americans in Mourning by Leonne Hudson. I also advised a WIP (work in progress) for another author preparing a Lincoln book.

Then there are the new writing duties I’ve taken on. In late spring I became the Lincolniana editor for the Lincoln Herald, a Lincoln scholarly journal published quarterly by Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN. I’ve submitted my first two columns and am working on the third. I also peer-reviewed an article for a forthcoming issue of the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association (JALA). I had peer-reviewed many journal articles in my science career, but this is the first for Lincoln studies (in part because there are hundreds of peer-reviewed science journals and maybe three for Lincoln). The editor of JALA has asked me to submit an article for the journal this coming year. In December, I attended the first meeting of the new Civil War Working Group hosted by President Lincoln’s Cottage, whose goal is to help Lincoln and Civil War groups in the Washington, DC region communicate and coordinate. In May, I relinquished the presidency of the Lincoln Group of DC but then in addition to my duties as immediate past president took on the role of LGDC historian to develop a history of the group. This coming February we will celebrate the 90th anniversary of the group, so I have my work cut out for me.

On to 2025!

2025 will be a busy writing year. To begin with, [imagine a drum roll here], I’m excited to report that in early December I signed a contract to write my next book, tentatively titled “Unable to Escape This Toil,” scheduled for release in February 2026. I’ve been doing research for the book over the last couple of years, which for those who have been following my activities on this website will give a hint into what the book is about. Even that won’t tip you off to its style, but I promise to provide more info as the book develops. The manuscript due date to the publisher (Globe Pequot, a trade division of Rowman & Littlefield) is June 2, 2025, so I’ll be focused on getting that done, preferably a full draft by the end of April to allow time for editing. The book will also have about 50 photographs (old and new), which adds another dimension and quite a bit more urgency to the writing.

That doesn’ t mean I’ll be abandoning the other writing activities I have in progress. I have three that have been dragging on for some time and I’m determined to get them done by the end of 2025. I’ll also be preparing several articles for magazines and journals to be timed for when the book comes out. Of course, I’ll continue to write for the Lincolnian newsletter and website, as well as my DJK and Hot White Snow websites. I’m also involved in coordinating several other Lincoln groups in developing programs for the 2026 semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) celebrations featuring Lincoln. On top of that, I have more travel planned in 2025 and have started to strategize for 2026 and 2027.

Wish me luck!

[Photo of David J. Kent with Norman Rockwell’s “For the Defense” at Rockwell Museum, MA, photo by Ru Sun, July 2023]

Fire of Genius

 

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

3 Comments

The Year in a Traveler’s Life – 2024

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Elephants Moremi Game Reserve, BotswanaTraveling seems to be done for the year. At least mostly (there might be one short overnight trip squeezed in before New Years). Enough to look back on the year in a traveler’s life. You can see the 2023 recap and 2022 recap by clicking on the links in this sentence. For the last several years I’ve included on my list of goals to visit at least 5 new countries and territories during the year. “Country” is the official United Nations designation, while “territory” encompasses those countries that are betrothed one way or another to some archaic monarchical system (e.g., Aruba is an “island country” but also a “constituent country in the Kingdom of the Netherlands). In any case, I use an app called “Been” to decide which is which. Personally, I respect their sovereignty.

The year started off slowly, as usual, mainly because I have a lot of Abraham Lincoln-related obligations in February, March, and April. For example, on February 12, I was the keynote speaker at the official National Park Service Lincoln birthday ceremony, where after providing some context, I performed the Gettysburg Address. I also attended events at Ford’s Theatre (where Lincoln was shot) and hosted renowned Lincoln historian Harold Holzer at the annual Lincoln Group of DC/Civil War Roundtable of DC joint birthday banquet. Spaced throughout the year were other Washington, DC and/or Lincoln centric events.

My first real traveling of the year was in March, when I took two weeks for a Windstar small ship sailing cruise, roughly 130 people on a four-masted sailing yacht in the Caribbean. Starting in Panama, there were stops in Colombia, Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire (these last three commonly called the “ABC Islands”), then on to Grenada, Mayreau (part of a country called St. Vincent and Grenadines), and ending in Barbados. In addition to the relaxing onboard gourmet meals and camaraderie, there were plenty of excursions to local history and culture sites, as well as tons of fantastic snorkeling. In Grenada, I got to snorkel over an underwater sculpture garden, with statues representing everything from the bizarre to the seriousness of slavery.

April took me back on the road. Like last year, I did a road trip into New England as research for a work in progress (WIP, which I’ll mention in my annual “writer’s life” post in a week or so). That gave me a chance to visit one of my old universities, to see historic sites in New Bedford and a dozen other locations, and to chat with interesting historians and laypeople. Again, more on that in my writer’s post.

The biggest trip of the year was to Africa. I first made it to Africa in 2022 with a trip to Tanzania. In 2023, I went to Morocco. In 2024, Ru and I joined my brother and his wife on a safari centered in Botswana. Arriving first in Cape Town, South Africa, we spent a few days exploring Table Mountain and the Cape of Good Hope. We even saw penguins. Then we flew up to Maun, Botswana to start the tour, which first took us into the Okavango Delta, an amazing experience full of hundreds of new species of birds, hippos, elephants, antelope, and more. Then it was on to the Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National Park where we saw thousands of elephants, or at least it seemed like thousands. From there we crossed the border into Zimbabwe to see the spectacular Victoria Falls. We even crossed the bridge into Zambia, which was an experience in itself. You can read more about the Botswana Experience in this post.

The fall travel was more domestic. September saw us in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut (somehow, I missed Rhode Island) for more WIP research and a family wedding. November was to the annual three-day Lincoln Forum conference in Gettysburg, PA, then back up to Massachusetts for a family Thanksgiving. Interspersed were tons of meetings, calls, presentations, and daytrips.

And the year ended (well, almost; I might still do a short trip to Richmond).

And what of 2025?

As I look forward, I’m not sure I’ll make my goal of 5 new countries and territories. I should be in that many countries but not all new. The new ones, however, should be spectacular.

The beginning of the year will remain closer to home as the usual Lincoln-related obligations will always be there, plus my new project. I may get up to New York City in January for research. April will take me back to Vermont for a new Lincoln conference at Hildene, the “summer home” of Lincoln’s son Robert and his family, now a historical non-profit. The tentative plan is to tack on a road trip to upstate New York on the way there. July is tentatively a road trip around the United Kingdom as a preamble to attending a wedding at Oxford University. The hope is to start in Edinburgh, Scotland (where I had lived for three months one summer for work), then down through England with enough wiggling to drop in on Wales and my hometown’s namesake village. November will take me back to Gettysburg for the Forum.

The biggie is a trip to Ecuador and Peru in late summer. This has been on my bucket list since the phrase bucket list was invented. There will be time in Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu in Peru, then seven days on a small boat (16 passengers) roaming around the Galapagos Islands and snorkeling with marine iguana, something sure to stir my old marine biologist bones. Then there is time in Quito and maybe other parts of Ecuador. The trip is through Road Scholar, which is the company that we used to see much of Cuba in 2019.

There may be more. While my “must see” list is getting shorter, it is by no means short.

I’ll have my annual Year in the Writer’s Life post up shortly before New Year’s.

Photo: David J. Kent, Elephants, Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Abraham Lincoln Book Acquisitions For 2024

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Books 2019How time flies. The year 2024 is almost over and I think I’ve finished accumulated new books for the year, to it’s time for my annual Abraham Lincoln book acquisitions post. As you’ll quickly see, my goal to reduce the number of books I buy has been relatively successful-the total number of books acquired is definitely fewer-coming in at 25 new acquisitions. Reducing the total number of books? Not so successful. You can read about past years acquisitions by scrolling through this link.

I did manage to acquire fewer Lincoln books this year despite some great new books hitting the shelves. The 25 “new” books in 2024 compares to 37 in 2023 and 34 in 22, so that’s a plus. I also received fewer books as gifts or from publishers. My grand total is split pretty evenly between 11 new hardcover books and 12 new softcover books, plus there are 2 books as PDF files only. Both PDFs, which are the two older books acquired, were downloaded because they provide source material for my current work in progress (which I’ll discuss soon in my “Year in a Writer’s Life” post). The hardcover versus softcover split is interesting. I definitely prefer hardcover books, but it seems publishers are shifting to producing more softcover books. This seems especially true for some academic publishers, who either don’t produce a hardcover version of the book or price it at some astronomically ridiculous price point in order to push the softcover version. As just one example, one book that is expected to come out in June is listed on Amazon as $90 for the hardcover and $25 for the softcover. Another book I recently bought was $65 for the hardcover and $28 for the softcover. At a recent conference, the on-site bookstore didn’t even bother trying to sell the hardcover, stocking only the softcover even for a receptive audience. Like the 18/20/22% tip suggestions they now put on restaurant bills, this is clearly a case of what Dan Ariely called “predictably irrational.”

Meanwhile, about half the books I acquired were actually published in 2024 (another is to be published in January 2025, but I received an ARC; more on that in a moment). That’s a shift from my previous habits where I focused more on collectible books from the early 20th and even 19th centuries. This year, the two oldest books by publication date are the two PDFs (publication dates of 1909 and 1910). The oldest physical book is 1963, but then they jump up to 1996 and again to 2001 before settling most into the last decade. I’m a bit surprised by this, but not completely given that I’ve made an attempt to collect less. I even read more Lincoln books I borrow from the local library since my bookshelves are already full, but somehow a dozen books published this year found their way into my home.

The most recognizable author from this year is almost certainly Erik Larson, whose Demon of Unrest dives into the period between Lincoln’s election and the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, the event usually pegged as the beginning of the Civil War. Larson is a guaranteed bestseller since his Devil in the White City and other books hit the shelves, although I was less impressed with this particular volume. Maybe I knew too much to read it as simply a good story and found myself either bored or critiquing details too much. Beyond Larson, the rest are either relatively obscure or are considered exceptional scholars in the Lincoln studies world but not so much to the general publish. Looking at my list, I realize that I know several of them fairly well, including Allen Guelzo, Harold Holzer, Jonathan W. White, Walter Stahr, and Jeffrey Boutwell, and then this year met Jon Grinspan, Mark Neels, and others because of the topic of their books.

I also had a back-cover blurb published on one book that come out this year. In January I received a request from Southern Illinois University Press to review a PDF manuscript by Leonne Hudson, and when that book, Black Americans in Mourning, came out this fall, my blurb praising the book was there along with those from Civil War experts James M. McPherson and Hilary N. Green. This is actually the second blurb I’ve had published on books, the first was on Nancy Bradeen Spannous’s Defeating Slavery from 2023. Perhaps it’s a trend.

I have to admit that I haven’t yet read all of the books I acquired this year despite reading over 100 books in 2024. I’m currently reading Boutwell, a book about George Boutwell, Lincoln’s first commissioner of internal revenue and later Grant’s secretary of the treasury. The book is written by Jeffrey Boutwell, a distant descendant. The publisher sent me the book to review. Other books I liked this year included Harold Holzer’s Brought Forth on this Continent, about immigration in Lincoln’s time; Allen Guelzo’s Our Ancient Faith, about democracy; Robert W. Merry’s Decade of Disunion, about the volatile 1850s; and I especially liked Jon Grinspan’s Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War.

The year 2025 will continue my plan to acquire fewer books and, perhaps more importantly, try to offload some of the books to make room. My proximal reading list includes Nigel Hamilton’s Lincoln vs. Davis, about the two presidents serving during the Civil War; Manisha Sinha’s The Rise and Fall of the Second American Revolution, which is quickly becoming the definitive treatise on reconstruction; and Doug MacDougall’s The Agitator and the Politician, about the difficult relationship between abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and Abraham Lincoln. I’m sure there will be more great books coming out in 2025 that I’ll also find myself reading, and perhaps also acquiring.

See the 2024 list showing author/title/publication date below my signature blurb below.

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

 

Here is the 2024 list! [Author, Title, Date of Publication]

Achorn, Edward The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention that Changed History 2023
Ayers, Carol Dark Lincoln and Kansas: A Partnership for Freedom 2001
Boutwell, Jeffrey Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy 2025
Current, Richard N. Lincoln and the First Shot 1963
Derber, Jesse Abraham Lincoln: Statesman Historian 2024
Grinspan, Jon Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War 2024
Guelzo, Allen C. Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and The American Experiment 2024
Hamilton, Nigel Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents 2024
Hanna, William F. Abraham Among the Yankees: Abraham Lincoln’s 1848 Visit to Massachusetts 2020
Holzer, Harold Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration 2024
Hudson, Leonne M. Black Americans in Mourning: Reactions to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln 2024
Jansen, Axel Alexander Dallas Bache: Building the American Nation Through Science and Education in the Nineteenth Century 2011
Larson, Erik The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War 2024
Learned, Marion Dexter Abraham Lincoln: An American Migration 1909
MacDougall, Doug The Agitator and the Politician: William Lloyd Garrison, Abraham Lincoln, and the Emcipation of the Slaves 2020
Masur, Kate and Clarke, Liz Freedom Was in Sight!: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, DC, Region 2024
Merry, Robert W. Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861 2024
Neels, Mark A. Lincoln’s Conservative Advisor: Attorney General Edward Bates 2024
Newton, Joseph Fort Lincoln and Herndon 1910
Pearsall, Alan American Town: The History of Ipswich, Massachusetts 2009
Schwalm, Leslie A. Medicine, Science & Making Race in Civil War America 2023
Sinha, Manisha The Rise and Fall of the Second American Revolution: Reconstruction, 1860-1920 2024
Stahr, Walter Salmon P. Chase: Lincoln’s Vital Rival 2022
White, Jonathan W. and Griffing, William J. (Eds) A Great and Good Man: Rare, First-Hand Accounts and Observations of Abraham Lincoln 2024
Williams, Frank J. and Pederson, William D., eds. Abraham Lincoln: Contemporary 1996
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Lincoln and the Dakota

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On this date, December 11, 1862, Abraham Lincoln transmitted to the U.S. Senate his response to their request that he “furnish the Senate with all information in his possession touching the late Indian barbarities in the State of Minnesota, and also the evidence in his possession upon which some of the principal actors and head men were tried and condemned to death.”

In today’s news, we hear the phrase “largest mass hanging in U.S. history.” This past October 14, which has traditionally been known as “Columbus Day” but more recently referred to by some as “Indigenous Peoples Day,” saw a recurrence of vandalism to the iconic Lincoln statue in Chicago and elsewhere. Usually, this vandalism includes red paint with the words “Dakota 38” defacing the statue itself and the accompanying exedra, the high-backed bench that forms a semicircular platform around the statue.

I have discussed the misunderstanding around Lincoln’s role in the “Dakota 38” in a previous post, so please read that as well.

There is also a video available here that digs further into why we honor Lincoln, including my portion discussing the Dakota 38.

In his letter to Congress of December 11, 1862, Lincoln notes:

I further state, that on the 8th. day of November last I received a long telegraphic dispatch from Major General Pope, at St. Paul, Minnesota, simply announcing the names of the persons sentenced to be hanged. I immediately telegraphed to have transcripts of the records in all the cases forwarded to me, which transcripts, however, did not reach me until two or three days before the present meeting of Congress. Meantime I received, through telegraphic dispatches and otherwise, appeals in behalf of the condemned, appeals for their execution, and expressions of opinion as to proper policy in regard to them, and to the Indians generally in that vicinity, none of which, as I understand, falls within the scope of your inquiry. After the arrival of the transcripts of records, but before I had sufficient opportunity to examine them, I received a joint letter from one of the Senators and two of the Representatives from Minnesota, which contains some statements of fact not found in the records of the trials, and for which reason I herewith transmit a copy, marked “C.” I also, for the same reason, inclose a printed memorial of the citizens of St Paul, addressed to me, and forwarded with the letter aforesaid.

As I detailed in my previous post, Lincoln carefully examined all of the records of the trials, separating out those who participated in rapes or murders from those merely participating in battles. The result was 38 who were found demonstrably guilty of heinous crimes to be executed as per the previous trials, but also Lincoln stopped the executions of 264 Dakota men where he believed the trial records did not support the sentence. Each of the men executed were found guilty of violating women (rape) or participating in a massacre (murder).

The previous post and the video links above provide more detailed information.

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is Immediate Past President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity andEdison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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John Brown Hanged Today

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John BrownBack in the days when inciting an insurrection against the government was considered disqualifying, on December 2, 1859, abolitionist John Brown was hanged.

Brown, of course, was an evangelical Christian of strong religious convictions. He believed he was an “instrument of God,” destined to eradicate the evils of slavery through direct violence. Considered by some a prophet, by others delusional, Brown saw the culmination of his life to bring equality to all Americans. His use of violence to “persuade” went back several years to the Kansas territory, where he and his followers responded to the sacking of Lawrence, Kansas (by pro-slavery mobs bent on murdering free-state settlers) by singling out five pro-slavery men and summarily hacking them to death with broadswords. Escaping punishment for that action, in 1859 he worked to start a slave revolt at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).

This was not a sudden act of vengeance but a pre-planned attack. Brown had lobbied many eastern abolitionists to support and fund the stockpiling of weapons, persuasively arguing that “a few men in the right, and knowing that they are right, can overturn a mighty king. Fifty men, twenty men, in the Alleghenies would break slavery to pieces in two years.” To the Sharps rifles provided by his backers he added 1,000 pikes specially made for him and intended to be supplied to the combatants. On October 16, 1859, Brown led his armed band to Harpers Ferry, where their objective was to take the armory, the arsenal, the town, and the rifle factory. The expectation was that he would be joined by masses of enslaved men once the attack began. That never happened. 

In short, Brown and his men killed four townspeople and one Marine. Most of his men were killed, escaped, or were captured. United States Marines led by First Lieutenant Israel Greene under the overall command of Colonel Robert E. Lee and including First Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart, quickly subdued Brown. After a quick trial, Brown and others were executed by hanging on December 2.

A few months later, Abraham Lincoln traveled to New York City to give his famous Cooper Union address. In it he tackles the Southern conservative Democrat charge that somehow the new progressive Republican Party was to blame for John Brown’s actions. Lincoln denied it:

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper’s Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper’s Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper’s Ferry affair but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not held to and made by “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.” You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common with “our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live,” declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood and thunder among the slaves.

Lincoln went on to argue that Brown’s use of violence necessarily failed:

John Brown’s effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution.

Lincoln would go on to become president of the United States and, in the course of secession and a brutal Civil War started by the South to preserve and expand slavery, found himself in a position to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and push through the 13th Amendment forever banning slavery.

Lincoln acknowledges that inciting an insurrection was wrong and that Brown was held accountable for his actions. Perhaps we need to revisit that accountability today.

[Photo of John Brown By Ole Peter Hansen Balling – 6wGTA-pgdPr_9w at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21870468]

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is Immediate Past President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity andEdison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.