Either that or Lincoln was not honest.in matters of biblical faith at least. This author is not objective when it comes to Lincoln's very private but sincere faith. The irony is that the author points out Lincoln was known as a man who was honest to the smallest details of his life and yet implies Lincoln was dishonest in these words he wrote to a father about the beauty of the afterlife. The author interjects that Lincoln didn't believe this but was just mouthing the Baptist thinking of the day to bring comfort to his father and to appear in a good light to his neighbors. One example of this is the letter Lincoln wrote to his dying father about the after life when. The author David Herbert Donald, while intending to rely solely on primary sources, takes every opportunity to editorialize that Lincoln was not a man of sincere faith but that Lincoln used his knowledge of faith to be accepted and to manipulate others.

Lincoln not honest when it comes to his faith? Much more than a political biography, Lincoln seats us behind the desk of a president who was both a master of ambiguity and expediency and a great moral leader, as he makes the decisions that preserved the Union and shaped modern America. And he depicts a man who was basically passive by nature, yet ambitious enough to take enormous risks and overcome repeated defeats. He reveals the development of the future president's character and shows how Lincoln's enormous capacity for growth enabled one of the least experienced men ever elected to high office to become a giant in the annals of American politics. In the best-selling tradition of Truman, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Herbert Donald offers a new classic in American history and biography - a masterly account of how one man's extraordinary political acumen steered the Union to victory in the Civil War, and of how his soaring rhetoric gave meaning to that agonizing struggle for nationhood and equality.ĭonald spent 50 years studying Lincoln, tracing his rise from humble origins to the pinnacle of the presidency.

Lincoln david herbert donald review