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The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words

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Abraham Lincoln was eloquent; everybody knows that. But what kind of eloquence did he have? How did he use it to advance his ideas and political agenda? How did he use it to enlighten the American people and to summon up the best that this nation can be? Any reader who has any interest in those questions must read this book. It is a profound yet lucid and fast-moving examination of Lincoln's uses of oratory as president-elect and as president. It stands with yet somehow manages to eclipse studies of specific speeches such as Garry Wills's LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG or the author's previous study of the Second Inaugural Address, LINCOLN'S GREATEST SPEECH. I teach Lincoln in my Law and Literature course and I plan to have this book at my elbow as I teach Lincoln this semester.

In this book, White expands the focus from his previous work on Lincoln's Second Inaugural ("Lincoln's Greatest Speech" published in 2002). White looks at the progression of Lincoln's thought and the increasing greatness and eloquence of his speeches and public letters during his presidency that leads to that final and considered by many to be his greatest major speech.

In the process of examining these speeches, White looks at them each individually, but also looks at their relationship to one another as "a string of pearls" (a term he uses more than once in the book). White uses this visual description of the speeches stating that while each pearl is beautiful in its own way and can be examined separately, they also come together and one pearl connects to others in the string that can best be understood by comparing them to each other and examining the ways they are connected. In many of the speeches, White demonstrates that Lincoln leaves the audience with thoughts and ideas that his mind is still wrestling with that are picked up again in a later speech and developed more fully as his thoughts on those subjects have matured over time.

White has also done an excellent job in selecting the best and most memorable speeches and public letters from Lincoln's presidency. He begins with Lincoln's farewell remarks at Springfield on February, 11, 1861 and includes remarks from his journey to Washington. Also included are both of Lincoln's Inaugural Addresses, his reply to Horace Greeley's "Prayer of Twenty Millions," the 1862 Message to Congress, Conkling Letter, and Gettysburg Address. As I read each chapter on each of the speeches, I got a sense of the growth of Lincoln and the development of his thought until it reached its twin climaxes of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural.

For anyone who enjoys the process of writing and speaking, this book is a great treat. Lincoln carefully selected words for their mental and emotional impact. And he seems to have gotten better every year. Very inspiring!

This was really well done, and certainly can be appreciated not just by admirers of Lincoln, but readers interested in the process of writing and speaking - especially for the purpose of winning an argument.

Some earlier posts are correct in noting that the book is superior to some other efforts that focused on single speeches, such as Garry Willis' book on the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln at Cooper Union. I haven't read White's Lincoln's Greatest Speech.

However, my feeling is the book could have taken an even longer view. That is pick up Lincoln as a speaker at a much earlier point in his life and follow him from his days as a country lawyer to the Second Inaugural Address. As it is, starting at a point in his life when Lincoln was already an accomplished speaker, we see him go from very good to great.

Also, while I thought the Mr. White's argument that the Bible was a strong influence on Lincoln's speaking style has merit, it also often seemed forced. I would have taken Lincoln's comments that both sides were praying to the same God as the view of a religous skeptic, for example.

This is a highly interesting history of the emergence of Lincoln's great rhetorical career during the civil war, starting with his railroad tour on the way to Washington after his election. Tracing the particulars and varied drafts of these gestating classics, the author puts each of the classic speeches in its context, especially the Gettesburg Address. The resulting fine-grain context for Lincoln's great masterpieces of eloquence is highly enjoyable and highlights the tenous edge they gave to his threatened passage as president through the trials of the Civil War.

Wonderful analysis of this remarkable and sensitive wordsmith and President

What a package: you see His picture, you know you will read His words (judged correctly "eloquent"), you review His chronology. . .and you can't not finish this book.(And the biggest prize is the end-matter, the over 100 pages of appendices and notes.)
I'm thankful--to a good extent--for Mr. White's tour. Without him, I would know less of the background of the speeches, less of the Civil War, less of the politics of the time. And he lets Lincoln star.
I tired only of Mr. White's repetition. It seemed he used the same putty to tie Lincoln's speeches together. But that might be too harsh: anything linking Lincoln to Lincoln will suffer. (But it seemed to suffer in the same ways: Yes, the divine meditation was for Lincoln's eyes only. . .for his eyes only. . .for his eyes only. Yes, Lincoln used parallel structures. . .parallel structures. . .parallel structures. Yes, the word count was minute with heavy use of one-syllable words. . .count. . .minute. . .syllables.)
Thank you, overall, for presenting the greatness of this man, the wisdom of his words, the nobility of his leadership to today's world. May we be wise enough to understand and think and feel him presently.

Outstanding! I may order more! And the service was impeccable. However, there were no dust jackets as shown. No big deal, really. The books are in mint condition otherwise. Thank you!

In depth essays on some of The Eloquent Presidents greatest speeches and writings.

This is a good study for anyone interested either in Lincoln or "wordsmithing." We learn that Lincoln liked to edit his speeches by ear, in that he would ask a trusted colleague to read his words back to him. Interesting concept and one with much merit.

Neither was Lincoln slow to take advice and comments from those he trusted, most famously when he accepted many of William Seward's suggestions about his first inaugural, although the President did adapt and enhance them,in a speech which was savaged by his critics and almost all the English press which "almost universally" spoke of it as "feeble, equivocal and temporizing."

While I was aware that many had an initially inferior opinion of Lincoln, even after his election, I was intrigued that Edward Everett, who spoke for two hours at Gettysburg, prior to Lincoln's famous address, said of Lincoln in 1861, "He is evidently a person of very inferior cast of character, wholly unequal to the crisis."

White shows how Lincoln developed some key concepts and phrases over time. "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" was not just a Gettysburg phrase but echoed what he said in a message to Congress, July 4 1861.

One annoying element running through this book as with most laudatory books about this great president is the "wonderfulness" of everything he did. For instance, White's rational for Lincoln's use of "Four score and seven" at Gettysburg is "Lincoln was asking his audience to calculate backward QUICKLY (my emphasis) to discover that the nation's starting point was not the Constitution .... but 1776 and the signing of the Declaration of Independence." As my brother might say, "Can you run that by me again?"

Overall though, this is a fine read about a better than fine President.

I wish I felt up to the task of equaling or at least becoming worthy of reviewing this book.

"The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words" is a profoundly moving, edifying and beautifully composed book that takes Lincoln's speeches, letters and words and explores how the 16th President used plain spoken English to lead, convince and argue for the preservation of our United States. Lincoln was a man, it seems from reading this book, who was not only self-taught but, in regards to language, self-conscious. He edited, revised, shortened, and simplified to make clear and make convincing those ideas and those laws that eventually won the re-unification of the United States.

With poor education, and poor resources, Lincoln nonetheless was a driven and ambitious man who studied and emulated the Bible (especially Psalms) and also grabbed every opportunity to work diligently to overcome his poverty of money by creating a wealth of mind.

No less a history book than a biography, this book is also a grammar and writing book because it brings to life the profundity and poetry of a leader who employed the best writing of any President before or since.

As a companion to this book, one should also read "Lincoln and Whitman" by Daniel Mark Epstein which explains how Lincoln may have come under the influence of poet Walt Whitman.

One can also see that the present day history of the United States, the racial and partisan rancor, continues, perhaps watered down, but still present, just as it was in Lincoln's time.