Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism

Contents Preface Acknowledgments 1.1 Negative Cap 1.2 Liberalism and Moral Conflict 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 4.1 Lincoln and the Founding of the Republican Party 4.2 The Reorganization of Parties 4.3 From Whig to Republic 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

John Burt has written a work that every serious student of Lincoln will have to read... Burt refracts Lincoln through the philosophy of Kant, Rawls, and contemporary liberal political theory. His is very much a Lincoln for our time.
-- Steven B. Smith New York Times Book Review
I'm making space on my overstuffed shelves for Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism. This is a book I expect to be picking up and thumbing through for years to come.
-- Jim Cullen History News Network
Burt treats the [Lincoln-Douglas] debates as being far more significant than an election contest between two candidates. The debates represent profound statements of political philosophy and speak to the continuing challenges the U.S. faces in resolving divisive moral conflicts.
-- E. C. Sands Choice
John Burt writes with real penetration about the arguments that informed the rise to power of the greatest genius of American democracy. At once a detailed history of the crisis of the 1850s and a searching essay on the moral basis of politics, this book goes far to answer two questions: why did Lincoln believe that compromise was the heart of normal politics, and how did he come to define a moment when normal politics must end?
-- David Bromwich, author of A Choice of Inheritance
Thoroughly informed by historical learning and philosophical sophistication, literary critic John Burt provides a detailed analysis of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in their original context, scrupulously fair to both parties. This is the most profound exploration of the enduring significance of Lincoln's rhetoric since Harry Jaffa's classic [Crisis of the House Divided] of 1959. A magnificent achievement.
-- Daniel Walker Howe, author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism is a brilliant, ground-breaking book with fresh insights on almost every page. No one has analyzed the ironies and problems of liberal politics with the rigor, depth, and subtlety Burt displays