![]() ![]() Implicitly conceding the Constitution to opponents of modern equality, he gives us Lincoln who respects the Constitution but must redeem it by putting it in service of the superior ideal of the Declaration that all men are created equal. And so Wills gives us Lincoln the nationalist who speaks of saving a nation whose commitment is to equality. They wanted states respected and local government revered, and they opposed national government efforts to interfere in statecentered race relations. Wills wants Lincoln to rebut Robert Bork, Edwin Meese, Ronald Reagan, and Wilmore Kendall who challenged the idea that equality was a national commitment. For the degree almost becomes a matter of kind. But his goal of answering modern conservatives pushes Wills near a serious failure, even though it is a matter of degree. He knows that both the Declaration and the Constitution mattered to the president. Wills comes close to getting Lincoln right. His concern is very Lincolnian-to find instruction for today in the words of the founders. Providing imaginative and often insightful background on classical funeral orations, on the meanings of cemeteries to nineteenthcentury Americans, on the relationship between transcendentalism and Lincoln's thought and touching the connections between Webster's constitutional ideas and Lincoln's and recreating the events of the president's visit to Gettysburg, Wills's main interest is those words. Focusing once more on the Declaration Wills now engages the Gettysburg Address-the "words that made remade America," as he calls them, to elaborate just what Lincoln did say. Now he turns to Lincoln, whom he once accused of reformulating the Declaration in ways that distorted Jefferson's original vision. His brilliant studies of the Declaration of Independence and The Federalist have advanced our understanding greatly. $23.00.) Gary Wills believes that words shape the way we see the world and that if we understand the words that guided the nation's founders and leaders we will understand the meaning of the nation. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:īOOK REVIEWS Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America. ![]()
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