Eric Foner is my favorite historian. He is our greatest expert on Reconstruction. He is a professor at Columbia. I heard him speak at UAB in November of 2013. I did not know that he wrote essays for "The Nation." This publication is one of our leading liberal political voices.
The first chapter is about Sacco and Vanzetti. They were two Italians immigrants who were executed for a bombing murder in the 1920's. Doubts persist to today as to their actual guilt. Foner thinks they were unfairly convicted, guilty or not.
In a 1979 essay talks about the media and history. This was a time of the TV historical miniseries like Roots. Those days are over. TV could never convey the complexity of American history.
Foner pays tribute to his mentor Richard Hofstadter, the most popular historian of his generation.
In a chapter on Obama, Foner takes the liberal position that the former president could have accomplished more progressive goals that he did if he had aimed higher. I disagree and take the position that he accomplished all that he could have under his circumstances.
Foner is complimentary of Howard Zinn. Glad to read this.
He points out historian Eric Hobsbawm. I need to check this guy out.
Foner gives a succinct defense of the importance of the birthright provision of the 14th Amendment.
The best essay is on Lincoln. Foner is totally positive about Lincoln. My verdict is also positive but has negative undertones. Foner gives A. Lincoln too much credit in my opinion. The war did not begin as a war of emancipation. Lincoln valued Union over emancipation. Emancipation came as a military necessity. Lincoln showed great capacity for growth. By the end of the war was Lincoln looking forward to a biracial society? Maybe so, but he wasn't able to look very far. Lincoln cannot be made into a present day political liberal. He did rise above his situation barely, but only barely as he was pulled by events into glory.
"Abraham Lincoln has always provided a lens through which Americans examine themselves. He has been described as a consummate moralist and a shrewd political operator, a lifelong foe of slavery and an inveterate racist. Politicians from conservatives to communists, civil rights activists to segregationists, have claimed him as their own." P. 145
Eventually, albeit slowly, Lincoln came to occupy positions that abolitionists had staked out. P. 146
An engaged social movement and an enlightened leader can produce change. P. 146
If you are pro Lincoln you have to believe that Lincoln's devotion to the Constitution and the Union gives him some slack on not speaking out on slavery until political opportunity presented itself in 1854.
The nation's unity must be maintained even if it meant compromising with slavery. P. 148
Lincoln differed from the abolitionists in not making equal citizens of blacks. He favored natural rights, which practically meant everyone citizen deserved the fruits of his labor, but he did not favor social and political rights for blacks. Abolitionists were egalitarian; AL was not. Lincoln refused to condemn the notorious black laws of Illinois, which made it a crime for back people to enter the state. P. 148
At time of his election Lincoln approved going to war to prevent the expansion of slavery, but thought the country was meant for white people. P. 149
On what basis did the Constitution bar interference with slavery where it already existed? P. 150
For Lincoln, slavery was a form of theft. P. 150
Lincoln was willing to let slavery survive for another 100 years. He certainly did not have the fervor of the abolitionists. P. 150
At the outset of the war he offered compensated emancipation to the border states, but those states rejected him. P. 151
The Emancipation Proclamation freed few slaves, but it committed the federal government to emancipation and was a huge move toward the eventual end of slavery. P. 152
Foner says that Lincoln "decoupled" emancipation from colonization. I don't think this is a sure thing. P. 154
The birthright provision of the 14th Amendment is essential to our democracy. P. 161
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