Content area
Full Text
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. By Alien C. Guelzo. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. xviii, 332 pp. $26.00, ISBN 0-7432-2182-6.)
Allen C. Guelzo's work is a richly detailed account of how Abraham Lincoln charted a middle course to the Emancipation Proclamation. Guelzo argues that a proper understanding of the Emancipation Proclamation must recognize that Lincoln was "our last Enlightenment politician" (p. 3), whose commitment to the virtue of prudence required a careful balance among his desire for emancipation, the presidency's constitutional authority, and the political realities of the Civil War. If Lincoln was a prudent man, then the text suggests that he was the only prudent man. Guelzo's Lincoln is an embattled leader, his critics and friends constantly offering conflicting advice, to...