Central Illinois is Abraham Lincoln country. Springfield has his law office, the home he owned as an adult, his tomb and the Old State Capitol, where he legislated and spoke. Surrounding regions focus on courthouses where Lincoln prosecuted or defended numerous cases, as well as the reconstructed village of New Salem, where Lincoln lived as a young man. Not to be omitted is the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum with its collections of Lincoln treasures and Illinois history.
So, it is natural that at least some residents and visitors have an affection for the man and an interest in new publications about aspects of his life and career.
Jesse Derber’s Abraham Lincoln, Statesman Historian is not another cradle-to-grave biography, nor a study of Lincoln’s presidency. There are already many volumes in both of those categories. Rather, Derber’s book is for the reader who is ready to go beyond these basics to examine an interesting aspect of Lincoln’s thought process.
Lincoln is not usually considered to be a historian, although many previous authors have quoted from some of his speeches, correspondence and other documents to show his interest in and use of material about the past. Lincoln certainly was not a trained historian like his highly educated and famous countryman George Bancroft, to whom Derber compares and contrasts with Lincoln on occasion. In this, as in so many other respects, Lincoln was thoroughly self-educated.
Early in his adult career, Lincoln began to believe that an accurate knowledge of historical events would be useful to determine precedents, and to provide wisdom and guidance for dealing with current and future issues, particularly political issues. He put the research skills he developed as a lawyer to good use, thoroughly examining government documents and other materials held at the (Old) State Capitol and other libraries, eventually including those in Washington, D.C.
Derber tracks the development of four stages in Lincoln’s perspective on the past: 1) emotional appeals to the importance of the past; 2) the use of research skills to prepare logical arguments (beginning about 1839); 3) reminders that the present will someday be someone else’s past, and current actions will be their precedents and memories (starting in 1854); and 4) a sense that history also has a religious importance (during his presidency). As Lincoln matured, he did not discard any of his earlier historical strategies but merely added the new perspectives to them.
During the pre-Civil War period, Lincoln was especially concerned with the issue of slavery and the founding fathers’ attitude toward it. He accumulated evidence to show that the founders saw slavery as a necessary evil that they hoped was on the road to extinction, but that could not be eliminated suddenly in the 1780s. They took action to prevent slavery from spreading to the Northwest Territory (that included Illinois) by passing an ordinance to that effect in 1787.
Lincoln particularly used historical arguments to combat Illinois U.S. Sen. Stephen A. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854). This act repealed the Missouri Compromise (1820), restricting the spread of slavery to the western territories, and replaced it with the doctrine of “popular sovereignty,” permitting settlers to determine for themselves whether a territory should have slavery or not. Even before 1854, Southern slaveholders and their supporters had come to see slavery as a positive good and opposed any attempts to restrict its spread anywhere.
The Republican Party, founded in 1854, connected Kansas-Nebraska opponents, who generally were willing to leave slavery alone where it already was, but vigorously opposed its spread into the territories that did not have slavery.
Derber proceeds chronologically, analyzing several of Lincoln’s speeches and other writings. He sometimes elaborates on the role of some other person besides Lincoln, or the circumstances surrounding a speech. But his overall purpose is to clarify why or how Lincoln used references to the past in particular instances. As a result, some familiar aspects of Lincoln’s career may be barely mentioned or omitted. In addition, many parts of Lincoln’s speeches are ignored when they have nothing to do with Lincoln’s perspective on the past.
During the Civil War, Lincoln also remarked that past precedents should not stifle the choices that had to be made to combat the unprecedented nature of the rebellion. One needed to “think anew and act anew,” particularly regarding the controversial suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.
In our current period of political turmoil, it can be instructive to see how Lincoln used aspects of the past, such as the statement in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” Lincoln interpreted this to mean that “all” meant all, not merely white men.
Lincoln’s interpretation of the past has not always sat well with his contemporaries or with modern historians. Derber includes various opinions from these groups as well.
While not an appropriate book for those with no background on Lincoln, Derber’s study is worthwhile for those who are seeking a different perspective.
Springfield historian Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein is the author of Lincoln and Medicine, among other books and articles. She is an occasional book reviewer for Illinois Times.
This article appears in April 16-22, 2026.
