Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered

"Remarkably, Briggs... [has] managed to find new ground to harvest."

"Briggs interprets Lincoln's references to Providence with a subtlety and intelligence I believe to be unsurpassed in Lincoln scholarship... A model of how better to understand our country and ourselves."

"Succeeds in illuminating the earlier speeches as elements in Lincoln's evolving ideology."

"Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered does a finer job than any of the other commentaries on Lincoln's speeches, and its reading will repay richly the serious student of Lincoln and of American political ideas in general."

"John Channing Briggs has thought long, hard, and well about the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, and he has produced a book that deserves to be read."

"Briggs enriches our understanding of Lincoln's pre-presidential speeches."

"A valuable intellectual history of Lincoln's speeches and developing thought on the issues of democracy, slavery, and self-government."

"Most books about Abraham Lincoln can be taken or left alone. This book merits attention for at least two important reasons: it takes a fresh and original look at the major speeches of Abraham Lincoln, and it manages to shed new light on some of the most familiar of all American texts."

"An invaluable contribution to the study of American political rhetoric and to Lincoln studies."

"A masterly study of Lincoln's pre-presidential speeches that conveys the clarity, accuracy, simplicity and depth of his words. Briggs shows Lincoln with the best style of a lawyer in politics, where the means is to find the single most persuasive argument and the object is to convince and not bemuse."