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Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream Gabor S Boritt 9780252064456 Books

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Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream Gabor S Boritt 9780252064456 Books

This classic book by Gabor Boritt should be on the essential reading list of every Abraham Lincoln scholar and scholar-wannabe. Non-scholars with deep interest in Lincoln’s motivations and history should also read it. It has become, deservedly, an icon in the world of Lincoln scholarship. It informs and challenges your previous understanding of our 16th president.

Split into two main sections, Book I focuses on Lincoln’s “quest for advancement” from early life up to the presidency. Book II focuses on the presidential years. Throughout his career, Lincoln was driven primarily by economic theory and practice. Surprisingly, this aspect of Lincoln’s life had been inadequately studied prior to this 1978 publication.

But wasn’t Lincoln driven by his moral opposition to slavery? Certainly slavery became the overwhelming issue of the day in Lincoln’s later life, coming to the fore especially after the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, a fact that “aroused him as he had never been before.” But as Boritt tracks Lincoln’s speeches, letters, and activities in his early years as a Whig politician it becomes clear his true motivation was economics and the right to rise. Even slavery, though often presented as a moral wrong, was to Lincoln an economic issue, one blocking the ability of all men to an equal chance to better their condition.

As a young state representative in Illinois, Lincoln was an early and consistent backer of internal improvements, i.e., the building of canals, navigable rivers, and railroads to improve transport infrastructure, and thus ability to sustain economic growth. This was the basic Whig philosophy, along with the related tenets of a strong central bank and high protective tariffs. All of these were economic drivers and indeed Lincoln became both an expert on financial matters and a leading proponent of their integration into policy-making. Much of Book I digs deep into these aspects of Lincoln’s legislative attention. After the financial crisis of 1837 and beyond, while other politicians were running from internal improvements (and the rising debts associated with them), it was Lincoln who continued to fight for advancement and funding, arguing that (not unlike the Erie Canal project years earlier) the long-term gain far outweighed the short-term expenditures.

For the first eleven chapters, Boritt explores both deeply and broadly into Lincoln’s views on various issues, all of which come back to an underlying economic motivation and his belief in every man’s right to rise no matter what his begins, much as Lincoln rose from “the simple annals of the poor” to our nation’s highest office.

Book II focuses on the presidency. By the late 1850s, slavery had come to dominate the national discussion and Lincoln’s political career. To some extent, according to Boritt, Lincoln repressed overt discussion of economic factors while emphasizing the moral and political ones. But Boritt also adeptly demonstrates how even then the economic factors were behind Lincoln’s push to restrict the expansion of slavery. In every aspect of his pre- and post-election presidency he incorporated economic drivers into his thinking and rationale for decision-making. This includes when and how to adopt the Emancipation Proclamation and his prior and simultaneous support for gradual, compensated emancipation and colonization. Lincoln consistently extolled the preeminence of “honest labor” and “earning the bread” from the sweat of one’s own brow. He favored expansion of technology and improved economic development. He worked hard to plan for assimilation of southerners back into the Union economy. At times his views seemed self-contradictory, but Boritt shows us how they are all driven by an underlying economic vision of America and the “American Dream.”

All of this discussion is supported by deep research and comprehensive endnotes. The extensive notes and bibliography are impressive, though one quibble I have is that the paperback edition I was reading omits the bibliography “to save paper,” instead noting that readers can purchase (for $10 at the time of publication) a hard copy from the University of Illinois Press.

The book includes in an appendix a “Historiographical Essay” in which Boritt traces how the defining scholars have handled the study of Lincoln over the years. Herndon’s Lincoln, for example, attempted to define the man while Nicolay and Hay’s Lincoln did much to elevate him to a more god-like status. The romanticizing and deifying of Lincoln held sway for decades until, Boritt tells us, Albert Beveridge began the trend toward treating Lincoln as an average, sometimes even sub-average, mortal who stumbled through life and the most cataclysmic period of our history. The Beveridge school dominated the evaluation of Lincoln for decades, but eventually was superseded by a more balanced and deeper version of scholarship (though not universally). The historiographical picture is more complicated than this, of course, and Boritt goes into substantial detail and interpretation. This appendix in itself is worth reading even if you find the economic Lincoln less appealing than you prefer.

A note on the writing. Born and raised in Budapest, Hungary before emigrating and becoming a U.S. citizen, Boritt nonetheless has a command of the English language that puts to shame most American-born citizens. As an avid reader and multi-published author I still had to look up many words he appears to use effortlessly. He references classical history, beliefs, and poetry as only a natural intellectual could do, all while viewing deep into psyche and motivation in ways others haven’t despite thousands of written analyses of Abraham Lincoln’s life. While I would expect that this high level of scholarship could be overwhelming to general readers (the book is informationally dense from start to finish), Boritt’s intellectualism and exploration are of such great value that everyone should make the effort to read the book. And to reiterate, this book must be on the reading list of anyone claiming, or wishing, to be a scholar of Abraham Lincoln.


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Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream Gabor S Boritt 9780252064456 Books Reviews

This is a unique, utterly fascinating book. It's unlike any other history I've ever read before on Lincoln, or anyone else for that matter. If you're interesting in learning about Lincoln and thinking about Lincoln in ways you never have before, this is the first book you should pick up after you've gotten your hands on the usual suspects. Be forewarned this is dry, complex, difficult subject matter wrapped in labored sometimes economic-centric prose, and it will take some time to read and fully digest its chapters and broad ideas. As a layman and a plain fan of history, the material was very daunting to me from the outset, but as I was able to slog through the initial chapters and get my footing, I quickly realized how rewarding the book is and how much it was changing my view and understanding of Lincoln, the antebellum period, and the Civil War era. It's really a revolutionary piece of scholarship, at least in my own narrow galaxy.

Boritt is not given to conjecture (though, he is given to hyperbole with his obvious admiration of Lincoln), and carefully builds his theses on a bed of primary evidence, almost solely relying on Lincoln's words, and the words of his contemporaries and those who knew Lincoln and worked with him. He builds a brilliant case for how Lincoln's core economic beliefs and underlying support for man to enjoy the fruit of his labor would define his entire life's work, from when he was a young man seeking office for the first time in Sangamon County in 1832 up through the White House. Boritt's ability to weave Lincoln's speeches, writings, and work through each of the key stages of his professional life and political development is impressive, and well shows that Lincoln's greatest achievements and most famous speeches -- Gettysburg, the second inaugural, the -- were built first and foremost on his unbreakable keystone economic ideals. Lincoln's most unceasing pursuit throughout life was for the preservation of free labor so that every American could achieve his own dream and grow out the young nation.

I am not a student of economics; in fact, I have very little interest in economic theory or history, and even less knowledge of these fields. For these reasons, I put off reading this book for years (after I was assigned for a college seminar on Lincoln and promptly dropped it on my window sill), figuring it was too dry and too tall a hill to climb when other Lincoln literature remained more accessible and flashy. That was a huge error. If you have a great interest in Lincoln, and really, the social and political era of the mid-1850s, this book is well worth the time. I don't think there's even been a book like it before, and it will expand your interest and appreciation in the Great Emancipator in ever-new ways.

And let me add, even the book's first appendix, a historiographical essay titled "Lincoln Man and God," is fantastic by itself, and at around 20 pages is just as delicious to read and dissect and ponder as the rest of the book. Another tremendous component of a great book.
Thank you
Very pleased !
Great book from one of the leading experts on Lincoln.
This classic book by Gabor Boritt should be on the essential reading list of every Abraham Lincoln scholar and scholar-wannabe. Non-scholars with deep interest in Lincoln’s motivations and history should also read it. It has become, deservedly, an icon in the world of Lincoln scholarship. It informs and challenges your previous understanding of our 16th president.

Split into two main sections, Book I focuses on Lincoln’s “quest for advancement” from early life up to the presidency. Book II focuses on the presidential years. Throughout his career, Lincoln was driven primarily by economic theory and practice. Surprisingly, this aspect of Lincoln’s life had been inadequately studied prior to this 1978 publication.

But wasn’t Lincoln driven by his moral opposition to slavery? Certainly slavery became the overwhelming issue of the day in Lincoln’s later life, coming to the fore especially after the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, a fact that “aroused him as he had never been before.” But as Boritt tracks Lincoln’s speeches, letters, and activities in his early years as a Whig politician it becomes clear his true motivation was economics and the right to rise. Even slavery, though often presented as a moral wrong, was to Lincoln an economic issue, one blocking the ability of all men to an equal chance to better their condition.

As a young state representative in Illinois, Lincoln was an early and consistent backer of internal improvements, i.e., the building of canals, navigable rivers, and railroads to improve transport infrastructure, and thus ability to sustain economic growth. This was the basic Whig philosophy, along with the related tenets of a strong central bank and high protective tariffs. All of these were economic drivers and indeed Lincoln became both an expert on financial matters and a leading proponent of their integration into policy-making. Much of Book I digs deep into these aspects of Lincoln’s legislative attention. After the financial crisis of 1837 and beyond, while other politicians were running from internal improvements (and the rising debts associated with them), it was Lincoln who continued to fight for advancement and funding, arguing that (not unlike the Erie Canal project years earlier) the long-term gain far outweighed the short-term expenditures.

For the first eleven chapters, Boritt explores both deeply and broadly into Lincoln’s views on various issues, all of which come back to an underlying economic motivation and his belief in every man’s right to rise no matter what his begins, much as Lincoln rose from “the simple annals of the poor” to our nation’s highest office.

Book II focuses on the presidency. By the late 1850s, slavery had come to dominate the national discussion and Lincoln’s political career. To some extent, according to Boritt, Lincoln repressed overt discussion of economic factors while emphasizing the moral and political ones. But Boritt also adeptly demonstrates how even then the economic factors were behind Lincoln’s push to restrict the expansion of slavery. In every aspect of his pre- and post-election presidency he incorporated economic drivers into his thinking and rationale for decision-making. This includes when and how to adopt the Emancipation Proclamation and his prior and simultaneous support for gradual, compensated emancipation and colonization. Lincoln consistently extolled the preeminence of “honest labor” and “earning the bread” from the sweat of one’s own brow. He favored expansion of technology and improved economic development. He worked hard to plan for assimilation of southerners back into the Union economy. At times his views seemed self-contradictory, but Boritt shows us how they are all driven by an underlying economic vision of America and the “American Dream.”

All of this discussion is supported by deep research and comprehensive endnotes. The extensive notes and bibliography are impressive, though one quibble I have is that the paperback edition I was reading omits the bibliography “to save paper,” instead noting that readers can purchase (for $10 at the time of publication) a hard copy from the University of Illinois Press.

The book includes in an appendix a “Historiographical Essay” in which Boritt traces how the defining scholars have handled the study of Lincoln over the years. Herndon’s Lincoln, for example, attempted to define the man while Nicolay and Hay’s Lincoln did much to elevate him to a more god-like status. The romanticizing and deifying of Lincoln held sway for decades until, Boritt tells us, Albert Beveridge began the trend toward treating Lincoln as an average, sometimes even sub-average, mortal who stumbled through life and the most cataclysmic period of our history. The Beveridge school dominated the evaluation of Lincoln for decades, but eventually was superseded by a more balanced and deeper version of scholarship (though not universally). The historiographical picture is more complicated than this, of course, and Boritt goes into substantial detail and interpretation. This appendix in itself is worth reading even if you find the economic Lincoln less appealing than you prefer.

A note on the writing. Born and raised in Budapest, Hungary before emigrating and becoming a U.S. citizen, Boritt nonetheless has a command of the English language that puts to shame most American-born citizens. As an avid reader and multi-published author I still had to look up many words he appears to use effortlessly. He references classical history, beliefs, and poetry as only a natural intellectual could do, all while viewing deep into psyche and motivation in ways others haven’t despite thousands of written analyses of Abraham Lincoln’s life. While I would expect that this high level of scholarship could be overwhelming to general readers (the book is informationally dense from start to finish), Boritt’s intellectualism and exploration are of such great value that everyone should make the effort to read the book. And to reiterate, this book must be on the reading list of anyone claiming, or wishing, to be a scholar of Abraham Lincoln.