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<\/a>A new president has won election but, as his inauguration approaches, dangerous weeks lie ahead for both him and his country.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Washington, D.C., at the Willard Hotel, leaders of what today is called the Deep State know that their hold on the political mechanisms of the country, and thus much graft, is about to end. Others from the Slave Power, both in Congress and the executive, fear that their dreams of expanding involuntary servitude to the territories and neighboring countries \u2013 and maybe even their ability to maintain slavery in the existing slave states \u2013 is in jeopardy.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Plots proliferate, some to seize the government for themselves in a coup d\u2019etat \u2013 maybe with the help of outgoing Vice President John Breckenridge — some to murder Abraham Lincoln, most likely as he passes through pro-South Baltimore. Meanwhile, in the hinterlands, armies form to seize control of the capital and country \u2013 what we have recently come to know as \u201clegitimate political discourse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In his history of the interregnum between Abraham Lincoln\u2019s November 1860 election and March 1861 inauguration, Professor Ted Simon of City University of New York tells a 160-year-old story that eerily parallels our recent experience. But he published this book in early 2020, so it can\u2019t be said that he aligned his storytelling with our most recent insurrection. If anything, we might accuse him of having written the playbook for the \u201cstolen election\u201d crowd.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Lincoln began his journey from his Springfield, Ill., home to Washington in early February. It would take 13 days, cover 1,904 miles over 18 different rail lines, and transit eight states, weaving in and out of Ohio and Pennsylvania several times. He gave 101 speeches to accumulated audiences in the hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million. He shook hands with tens of thousands of people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the process, Widmer writes, Lincoln introduced himself to an American electorate that had chosen him without knowing him well. He was coming to Washington intent on upholding the Union and dismantling a corrupt, anti-democratic and insular power structure. And, all along the way, he traveled fully aware that there were significant forces dedicated to murdering him.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Widmer won the prestigious Lincoln Forum Book Prize for this effort, and it is no wonder why. It is clearly written and devilishly conceived. It is a suspense thriller not unlike Frederick Forsyth\u2018s fictional\u00a0Day of the Jackal<\/i>. Just as we know that the Jackal doesn\u2019t assassinate Charles DeGaulle, we know the insurrectionists won\u2019t assassinate Lincoln in 1861. Yet there are times in this reading we can\u2019t imagine how they will miss. It\u2019s one of those \u201cI\u2019ll read one more chapter, then go to bed\u201d books.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Several themes run throughout, in addition to the murder plot concerns. One is that Lincoln used his 100-plus speeches \u2013 some five minutes long and delivered from the back of his train to a small-town crowd, others much longer from the dais of majestic venues such as the New York State Capitol in Albany and Freedom Hall in Philadelphia — to make the case for Union. In the process, he projected himself as a new form of political leader: homespun, western, erudite but unpretentious.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Widmer also uses the rail journey to detail the economic differences between the rapidly industrializing North and a stagnant plantation-controlled South. His almanac of railroad and industrial statistics demonstrates the foolishness of the Southern belief that a military victory was possible in an age of total warfare \u2013 which is what U.S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman eventually brought to bear.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Equally entertaining are Widmer\u2019s many allusions to the characters of both the past and the future who did see, or might have seen, Lincoln along the route. The reader gets a survey of 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century American history from Widmer\u2019s asides, whether they involve John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, one of the Roosevelt scions, or any number of others. Walt Whitman attends one Lincoln event, and Widmer reports or their mutual admiration for one another.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I listened to Fred Sanders\u2019 excellent narration but then checked the book out of my library to re-read portions. This is a gripping and authoritative read (or listen).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul O\u2019Connor is a longtime journalist who grew up in New England and has spent decades living in North Carolina, observing and writing about government, politics, political machinations and a range of other topics. This time, he\u2019s considering some history that sounds eerily familiar. Reviewed by Paul T. O\u2019Connor \u00a0 LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: THIRTEEN […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,13,15],"tags":[822,364,1239,1240,1238],"class_list":["post-2864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","category-audio-books","category-history","tag-american-history","tag-lincoln","tag-lincoln-on-the-verge","tag-political-insurrection","tag-ted-widmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2866,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864\/revisions\/2866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>A new president has won election but, as his inauguration approaches, dangerous weeks lie ahead for both him and his country.<\/span><\/p>\n