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Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery. By Richard Striner. (Oxford, England; NewYork and other cities: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. (vin) + 308. Notes, select bibliography, index. Cloth, $28.)
So far as a title can indicate the contents of a book, this one fits perfectly. It reminds us that Abraham Lincoln reentered national politics in the 1850s because he was opposed to slavery. Because the institution itself was protected by the Constitution and by public opinion, but Lincoln could campaign against its territorial expansion. He campaigned first against the Kansas-Nebraska Act, then against the Dred Scott decision, and against Stephen A. Douglas and his concept of "popular sovereignty," for a seat in the U. S. Senate. After losing this election (though he seems to have won a majority of the actual votes), he had sufficient following outside Illinois to campaign for president, winning the Republican nomination and then the general election. Though president and party pledged to leave slavery alone in the states where it was already established, Lincoln's pro-slavery opponents, by no means entirely restricted to the South,...