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Lincoln's Ladder to the Presidency: The Eighth Judicial Circuit
Contributor(s): Fraker, Guy C. (Author), Burlingame, Michael (Foreword by)
ISBN: 0809332019     ISBN-13: 9780809332014
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
OUR PRICE:   $37.62  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: October 2012
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Presidents & Heads Of State
- History | United States - 19th Century
- History | United States - State & Local - Midwest(ia,il,in,ks,mi,mn,mo,nd,ne,oh,sd,wi
Dewey: 340.092
LCCN: 2012005552
Physical Information: 1.2" H x 6.3" W x 9.1" (1.30 lbs) 356 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 19th Century
- Cultural Region - Midwest
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Univeristy Press Books for Public and Secondary Schools 2013 edition
Superior Achievement by the Illinois State Historical Society, 2013

Throughout his twenty-three-year legal career, Abraham Lincoln spent nearly as much time on the road as an attorney for the Eighth Judicial Circuit as he did in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. Yet most historians gloss over the time and instead have Lincoln emerge fully formed as a skillful politician in 1858. In this innovative volume, Guy C. Fraker provides the first-ever study of Lincoln's professional and personal home away from home and demonstrates how the Eighth Judicial Circuit and its people propelled Lincoln to the presidency.

Each spring and fall, Lincoln traveled to as many as fourteen county seats in the Eighth Judicial Circuit to appear in consecutive court sessions over a ten- to twelve-week period. Fraker describes the people and counties that Lincoln encountered, discusses key cases Lincoln handled, and introduces the important friends he made, friends who eventually formed the team that executed Lincoln's nomination strategy at the Chicago Republican Convention in 1860 and won him the presidential nomination.

As Fraker shows, the Eighth Judicial Circuit provided the perfect setting for the growth and ascension of Lincoln. A complete portrait of the sixteenth president depends on a full understanding of his experience on the circuit, and Lincoln's Ladder to the Presidency provides that understanding as well as a fresh perspective on the much-studied figure, thus deepening our understanding of the roots of his political influence and acumen.


Contributor Bio(s): Burlingame, Michael: - Michael Burlingame is the author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln and the Civil War and the editor of many collections of Lincoln primary source materials. He is the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield.
Fraker, Guy C.: - Guy C. Fraker, a retired attorney from Bloomington, Illinois, is the author of Lincoln's Ladder to the Presidency: the Eighth Judicial Circuit. His articles have been published in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Illinois Heritage, the Bloomington Pantagraph, and the Champaign News Gazette. He was a consultant for the WILL-TV documentary Lincoln: Prelude to the Presidency, and he cocurated Prologue to the Presidency: Abraham Lincoln on the Eighth Judicial Circuit, an exhibit on permanent display at the David Davis Mansion.