In this seminar, Abraham Lincoln and Reconstruction, we will consider the issues of slavery, secession, and reconstruction. As seceded states came under the control of Union armies, Lincoln grappled with the problem of their eventual readmission or reconstruction. What should the status of disloyal whites be once they had been forced to resubmit to the authority of the United States? What about the status of blacks, almost all of whom had been liberated from slavery? When could these states be safely given full civil and political rights under the Constitution, including representation in Congress and the right to participate in presidential elections? How did Lincoln understand the matter of political and civil equality both before the Civil War and in the wake of rebellion and emancipation? To answer these questions is to understand Lincoln’s antislavery constitutionalism, his purpose for waging the war for Union, his policy of emancipation, and the meaning of “a new birth of freedom” embedded in the Gettysburg Address.

This program will be conducted as a discussion, utilizing primary source documents as the only readings in our conversation. All attendees of this free seminar will receive lunch, a letter of attendance, as well as paper and digital copies of the reader.