Cover: Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism: Lincoln, Douglas, and Moral Conflict, from Harvard University PressCover: Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism in HARDCOVER

Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism

Lincoln, Douglas, and Moral Conflict

  • Preface
  • Acknowledgments
  • 1. Introduction: Implicitness and Moral Conflict
    • 1.1 Negative Capability
    • 1.2 Liberalism and Moral Conflict
  • 2. Lincoln’s Peoria Speech of 1854
    • 2.1 The Debate over the Kansas–Nebraska Act
    • 2.2 Making and Breaking Deals in 1850 and in 1854
    • 2.3 Lincoln’s Chief Arguments
    • 2.4 The Irony of American History
  • 3. Lincoln’s Conspiracy Charge
    • 3.1 The “House Divided” Metaphor
    • 3.2 The Unfolding of the Bleeding Kansas War
    • 3.3 Douglas and the Lecompton Constitution
    • 3.4 Lincoln’s Evidence
    • 3.5 Dred Scott II
    • 3.6 A Living Dog Is Better than a Dead Lion
  • 4. Douglas’s Conspiracy Charge
    • 4.1 Lincoln and the Founding of the Republican Party
    • 4.2 The Reorganization of Parties
    • 4.3 From Whig to Republican
    • 4.4 Anti-Nebraska and Anti-Lecompton Democrats
    • 4.5 The 1854 Platforms
    • 4.6 Conspiracies across Party Lines
    • 4.7 Sectional and Ideological Parties
    • 4.8 Conclusion
  • 5. Douglas’s Fanaticism Charge
    • 5.1 Hostility to New England
    • 5.2 The Apodictic Style and Reasonableness
    • 5.3 Appeals to the Divine Will
    • 5.4 Implicitness and Situatedness
    • 5.5 Transformation of Conceptions
    • 5.6 Limits of Persuasive Engagement
  • 6. Douglas’s Racial Equality Charge
    • 6.1 Lincoln’s Nonextension Position and Anti-slavery
    • 6.2 Douglas on Abolition and Black Citizenship
    • 6.3 From Nonextension to Emancipation
    • 6.4 From Emancipation to Citizenship
    • 6.5 Racism and Freedom
  • 7. The Dred Scott Case
    • 7.1 Legal Background of the Case
    • 7.2 The Dred Scott Case in Court
    • 7.3 Lincoln’s Response
    • 7.4 Douglas’s Response
    • 7.5 Conclusion
  • 8. Aftershocks of the Debates
    • 8.1 Southern Responses to the Freeport Doctrine
    • 8.2 Douglas’s “Dividing Line” Doctrine
    • 8.3 The Pamphlet War with Jeremiah Black
    • 8.4 The 1859 Ohio “Lincoln–Douglas Debates”
    • 8.5 The Cooper Union Speech
    • 8.6 The First Inaugural Address
  • 9. Coda: And the War Came
    • 9.1 The Gettysburg Address
    • 9.2 The Will of God Prevails
    • 9.3 The Second Inaugural Address
  • Notes
  • Works Cited
  • Index

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