History Commons^™

Ballew, William A., 1842-1915 (Sc 3277), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3277. Letter, 12 November 1864, from William A. Ballew to Thomas Hopkins, Clinton County, Kentucky. Writing from Spring Hill, Tennessee, where he is serving with the 12th Kentucky Infantry, Ballew notes his regiment’s support of presidential candidate George B. McClellan (“little mack”). Although they were not yet enfranchised, he cites a mock election held by African Americans in Nashville as evidence for President Abraham Lincoln’s likely reelection. He notes the good health of his fellow soldiers, including Hopkins’ two sons, Lewis and Shelby.

Is Trump The De-Regulator-In-Chief?, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Abe Lincoln was a regulation cutter. Who would’ve known that?”

That line in a speech on December 8 by President Trump sent a number of pundits flocking to their history textbooks for fact-checking, especially after he followed it with the claim that, based on the numbers, he had actually exceeded Lincoln’s first-year total. “That’s pretty good for 10 months.”

What the pundits found was largely what they looked for. Blue State Daily’s Matthew Slivan smirked that “Trump likes to conjure comparisons to Abraham Lincoln,” but “the truth is what you’d expect: Trump is a blowhard.” Another reporter rang up …

Commentary: Will The Courts Make Trump's Presidency Less Imperial?, Allen C. Guelzo, James H. Hulme

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Nearly three months ago, Donald Trump assumed a presidency that, for more than a century, had grown seemingly endless discretionary powers. And he did so in company with Republican majorities in Congress and in 32 state legislatures -- all of which should have made his decisions unassailable.

Instead, he has been stymied and embarrassed by resistance from a federal judiciary that has twice halted executive orders on the most prominent issue of his presidential campaign. So, will the federal judiciary become the wall against which Trump bleeds away the power not just of his own presidency but of the “imperial …

“The Union Forever”: Frederick, Maryland In The Elections Of 1860 And 1864, Megan E. Mcnish

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Frederick, Maryland has been remembered as a bastion of Unionist sentiment during the Civil War. However, in the Election of 1860, on the eve of the nation’s internal conflict, a large portion of the city’s 8,000 residents voted for a secessionist candidate. The Election of 1860 is famous for straying from the typical bi-partisan election; four candidates ran for office and each appealed to different political sentiments. [excerpt]

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 - Relating To (Sc 2859), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2859. Correspondence, documents, and secondary sources collected by Price Kirkpatrick and related to the “real” birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. Material speculates that Lincoln could have been born in Monroe or Cumberland counties in Kentucky.

Chelf, Frank Leslie, 1907-1982 (Mss 492), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 492. Correspondence, photographs, scrapbooks, audiotapes, film and miscellaneous material relating primarily to the political career of Democrat Frank L. Chelf, who represented Kentucky’s Fourth District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1944-1966. Includes Chelf’s voting record and bills, research and speeches related to his legislative interests.

Carter, Chillon Conway, 1830-1891 (Mss 112), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescripts of selected material for Manuscripts Collection 112. Correspondence, chiefly written by Monroe County, Kentucky native Chillon Conway Carter, to his wife, Lucinda E. and his two daughters Nancy G. and Louisa A., during the Civil War. Also includes letters written to Carter by his brother, John B. Carter, who lived in White County, Illinois.

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 (Sc 666), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 666. Facsimiles of outgoing letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1848-1865; marriage license of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd, 1842; speeches and notes of or pertaining to Lincoln, 1835-1873, including program for dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, 1863. Explanatory information appears on the reverse of the letters.

Mallory, Robert, 1815-1885 (Sc 641), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 641. Letter to President Abraham Lincoln from Robert Mallory, Oldham County, Kentucky and U.S. Representative from Kentucky, relating to the appointment of Dr. L. L. Mathers for the position of regimental surgeon. He is recommended by the entire Kentucky Union delegation in Congress. Mallory congratulates Lincoln on the news from the Kentucky elections.

Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845 (Sc 1560), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1560. Copies of three letters written by Andrew Jackson. The first, 31 May 1817, concerns provisions of a treaty with the Chickasaw Indians. The second, 3 May 1829, relates to the appointment of a surgeon at a federal penitentiary. The third, 3 November 1832, requests consideration for his nephew, Samuel Donelson, who was visiting Philadelphia. Also, copy of first photograph of Abraham Lincoln as President.

Lincoln's Defense Of Politics: The Public Man And His Opponents In The Crisis Over Slavery (Book Review), Julie Mujic

History Faculty Publications

Book review by Julie Mujic.

Schneider, Thomas E. Lincoln’s Defense of Politics: The Public Man and His Opponents in the Crisis over Slavery. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006.

ISBN 9780826216069

Book Review: The Rise And Fall Of The American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics And The Onset Of The Civil War By Michael Holt, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

"An impartial history of American statesmanship will give some of its most brilliant chapters to the Whig party from 1830 to 1850," wrote James G. Blaine in his memoirs. This was not, unhappily, because of a great heritage of political achievement in American public life. The work of the Whigs was, as Blaine admitted, negative and restraining rather than constructive. Still, "if their work cannot be traced in the National statute books as prominently as that of their opponents, they will be credited by the discriminating reader of our political annals as the English of to-day credit Charles James Fox …