William Lee Miller (1926–2012)

William Lee Miller has accomplished a remarkable feat - he has written a truly fresh biography of Abraham Lincoln. In some ways it easier to describe what Miller's book is not rather than what it is. Lincoln's Virtues is not a standard biography, nor is it an uncritical hagiography, nor certainly is it a so-called `debunking' work that would show us an unworthy despicable Lincoln (if anything Miller debunks the debunkings). Miller does take the reader through many of the events of Lincoln's show more life, but always with an eye to Lincoln's "moral escalation" as a politician (retain the emphasis on both parts: moral and politician).

Lincoln was a politician. The revered, marble-man Lincoln is typically not viewed as a `mere' politician, but in fact politics and his role as a practitioner of politics - a politician - were the centerpiece of his life. As Miller observes in the Preface "if Abraham Lincoln was not a `politician', then words have no meaning." (The Preface, which can be read on Amazon gives the reader an excellent sense of the book and whether it might be of interest).

In this reader's view, Miller spends too much time on Lincoln's early days - the evidence from the early days is quite clouded looking back through the lens of Lincoln's later. While these early events were no doubt important to young Lincoln's development, whether we can parse their importance today is highly problematic - doubly so given the underlying doubts about the `facts'. An interesting and perhaps revealing set of facts does emerge, however. Lincoln was a social nonconformist - he did not drink, hunt, fish, regularly attend church, or swear - all of which marked him as highly idiosyncratic in the frontier communities of his youth. And yet, Lincoln was no social outcast; to the contrary he was often at the center of social life telling stories.

Miller rewards the patient reader, especially with the chapters on the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Cooper Union Address. The Lincoln-Douglas debates have provided fodder for the Lincoln debunkers who want to portray Lincoln the `Great Emancipator' as a common white racist (to use a 20th century term). Lincoln did say some highly offensive things (to our ears) about the social inequality of black and white. Without excusing Lincoln, Miller reminds us of the context. Lincoln was running for political office in a state that had recently adopted a constitutional amendment by popular vote to exclude all blacks, free or slave, from its borders. Moreover, he was running against a political Giant, Stephen A. Douglas, a proud across-the-board white supremacist. One really must read Douglas's statements to appreciate Lincoln's. Here is the key point of dispute between Lincoln and Douglas: Was the black man a human being with the right not to be enslaved? Lincoln said yes on both counts and Douglas said no and no.

Miller demonstrates that Lincoln rose from his unlikely background to potential Republican nominee for the presidency because of his stance against slavery and because of his ability to communicate his thoughts with absolute clarity. The Cooper Union Address, discussed at some length, established his credentials to interested, but skeptical Easterners and was key to his political rise. Lincoln conveyed his reasoning without evoking great waves of emotion and, in this instance also without his trademark storytelling.

Miller's Lincoln is a politician: an unstinting party man, willing to compromise to attain policy goals, and standing on core principles. (Lincoln the man also shines through as a fundamentally decent, honest, generous person, but that is not the book's focus). Lincoln's core principles were chronologically, first, that slavery was wrong (or nothing is wrong) and, second, preservation of the Union. The Union that Lincoln sought to preserve was no mere gathering of states, but rather a republic, the first modern republic. Lincoln came to regard its preservation as paramount, but also believed that slavery would not survive within that Union.

Miller quotes Lincoln's letter to his long-ago Congressional colleague Alexander Stephens: "You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us." That statement captures the essence of the argument with Lincoln's trademark ability to get at the nub of a thing in a way that anyone could understand and no one could dispute.

Oddly, Miller concludes his book at Lincoln's inauguration (after a brief, but interesting discussion of the forgotten and failed Crittenden Compromise). It is a measure of Miller's success that the reader feels regret rather than relief that Miller did not explore Lincoln's Virtues in his years as President.

Addendum: Miller subsequently wrote President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman that covers Lincoln in the White House. show less

In one sense, this book is the natural sequel to Miller's previous _Lincoln's Virtues_, with that other volume covering the pre-presidential years, and this one covering his years as president. In another sense, however, these two books are quite different. In that earlier book, Miller had no problem admitting Lincoln's failings, but in _Duty of a Statesman_ Miller seems to want to play Lincoln's defense attorney, putting the most generous construction on all of Lincoln's actions and the show more least generous construction on the actions of Lincoln's opponents. In this hagiography of President Lincoln, Miller seems even to have forgotten those prior admissions.

Perhaps defensive attorney is not the right analogy. At times, Miller shares curious facts with us and is apparently oblivious that there is anything in need of defending. For example, on page 218 Miller quotes Lincoln to the effect that John J. Key was not chargeable with "disloyalty", then on page 219 quotes Lincoln to the effect that Key's talk was "treasonable", and Miller comments not at all about the inconsistency.

It is ironic that Shelby Foote, who viewed Lincoln as good but not uniquely so, seemed to exemplify "malice toward none" in his writings so much better than some of Lincoln's enthusiasts. show less

A well read person, said Miss Charlotte Mason, will be familiar with "Men and their motives, the historical sequence of events, principles for the conduct of life, in fact, practical philosophy, is what the emergencies of the times require us to possess and to be able to communicate."

We don't learn these good things in a year, but rather, these qualities "are the gathered harvests of many seasons' sowing of poetry, literature, history."

When Miss Mason talked about sowing literature and show more history, she was referring to putting children in touch with good books. Lucidity, personal conviction, directness- these are some of the qualities we look for when selecting the books for our children to read. We want what Charlotte Mason called 'living books.'

One such book is Arguing About Slavery. I knew we had found a living book, one written with that personal conviction which Charlotte [Mason] mentions, when I read this in the introduction:
"I discovered the true story told in these pages while I was working on
something else- on "America's Moral and Intellectual Underpinnings," as I
rather grandly put it. I had decided to deal with that subject, not a small
one, by telling stories. When I came across this one, it grabbed me by the
collar, threw me upon the floor, sat upon my chest and insisted on being told."

The author is William Lee Miller. He researched the congressional records during the decades prior to 1861, reviewing the discussions, arguments, and fights on the issue of slavery. He shares them here, with plentiful commentary and background research, meticulously documented. His style is riveting, the story fascinating, and his personal conviction clearly evident.

Our two oldest girls read it when they were 14 and 16. They were captivated. My eldest made a copybook of quotes from this book alone. MIdway through the 500 page
volume she had six pages (double sided) of handwritten quotes. She met people in the pages of this book whom she felt she 'knew' and she was eager to find out more about them.
The (then) 14 y.o. was also working through the book on her own, making her own
copybook. The two girls planned to share their quotebooks when they were
done, to see if they selected any of the same quotes. Years later, this remains one of their favorite books ever read for school or any other reason. The Head Girl actually wrote a fan letter to the author (we are not fan letter writers in general), and yes, he responded. She still keeps her notebook and refers to it occasionally. This was probably one of the ten most important books we've ever read for school.

It is not enough, said my educational mentor, "to teach reasoning, logic, we must have knowledge of character, of principles, of God most of all, because "without knowledge, Reason carries a man into the wilderness and Rebellion joins company."

Arguing About Slavery is full of good seed to sow. show less

An astonishingly compelling read. Nineteenth century US history may be limited in he public imagination to the Civil War, but the century was crucial in shaping the modern US.
Miller's book traces Lincoln's evolution from a backwoods lawyer to the most revered statesman in US history, a martyr to the cause of freedom. It's a compelling read, exposing the battles between moral purity and expediency, jockeying for political position between the Whigs and the Democrats (with some interesting show more parallels to recent political history) , and the slow spread of abolitionist sentiment through the US. Miller largely omits mention of the war itself: the stories are well known, available elsewhere, done to death. But by the time you finish the book, the war seems - in retrospect - inevitable.

While Miller obviously adores Lincoln, any puffery here is well bracketed by exposition of the man's flaws. What emerges is a complex portrait of a man seldom portrayed in more than a one-dimensional fashion, even in epic treatments of the Civil War such as Ken Burns' documentary. show less