The Fiery Trial, by Eric Foner

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, by Eric Foner
WW Norton and Company, 2010
336 pages, plus 16 pages of b&w photos, Acknowledgements, Chronology, Abbreviations, Notes, Index

Front Matter
In this landmark work of deep scholarship and insight, Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Lincoln and the end of slaver in America. Foner begins with Lincoln's youth in Indiana, and Illinois and follows the trajectory of his career along an increasingly tense and shifting political terrain from Illinois to Washington, DC. Although "naturally anti-slavery" for as long as he can remember, Lincoln scrupulously holds to the position that the Constitution protects the institution in the original slave states. But the political landscape is transformed in 1854 when the Kansas-Nebraska Act makes the expansion of slavery a national issue.

A man of considered words and deliberate actions, Lincoln deftly navigates the dynamic politics of antislavery, taking measured steps, often along a path forged by abolitionists and radicals in his party. Lincoln rises to leadership in the new Republican party by calibrating his politics to the broadest possible antislavery coalition. As president of a divided nation and commander in chief at war, displaying a similar compound of pragmatism and principle, Lincoln finally embraces what he calls the Civil War's "fundamental and astounding" result: the immediate, uncompensated abolition of slavery and recognition of blacks as American citizens.

Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.

Table of Contents
List of Maps and Illustrations
Preface
1. "I am naturally anti-slavery" Young Abraham Lincoln and Slavery
2. "Always a Whig": Lincoln, the Law, and the Second Party System
3. "The Monstrous Injustice": Becoming a Republican
4. "A House Divided": Slavery and Race in the late 1850s
5. "The Onlyu Substantial Difference": Secession and Civil War
6. "I Must Have Kentucky": The Border Strategy
7. "Forever Free": The Coming of Emancipation
8. "A New Birth of Freedom":Securing Emancipation
9. "A Fitting, and Necessary Conclusion": Abolition, Reelection, and the Challenge of Reconstruction
Epilogue: "Every Drop of Blood": The Meaning of the War
Acknowledgments
Chronology of Lincoln, Slavery and Emancipation
Abbreviations Used in the Notes
Notes
Index

Photos
Abraham Lincoln in 1858
Orville H. Browning
Lyman Trumbull
Stephen A. Douglas
Owen Lovejoy
"The Railsplitter" (1860 painting)
1860 Campaign Placard
"The Dis-United States" (Harper's Weekly)
"Stampede of Slaves from Hampton to Fortress Monroe" (Harper's Weekly)
Charles Sumner
Wendell Phillips
"First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln"
"Abe Lincoln's Last Card" (Punch)
"Sensation Among our 'Colored Brethren'" (Harper's Weekly)
Frederick Douglass
Alexander Crummell
Martin R. Delany
William H. Johnson's gravestone
"The Miscegenation Ball"
"Negro Volunteers Enrolling in Gen. Grant's Army Corps" (Le Mondre Illustre)
"Uncle Abe's Valentine Sent By Columbia" (Harper's Weekly)
"Lincoln and the Female Slave" (1863 painting)