A Story of Adultery, Murder, and the Making of a Great President
by Julie M. Fenster
The year 1856 was a pivotal one for this country, witnessing the birth of the Republican Party as we know it. But it was also a critical year in the troubled political life of Abraham Lincoln. As a lawyer, he tried his most scandalous murder case. At the same time, he made a decision which unleashed his soaring abilities for the first time, a decision which reverberates to this day: whether or not to join the new Republican Party.The Case of Abraham Lincoln offers the first-ever account of the suspenseful Anderson Murder Case, and Lincoln's role in it. Bestselling historian Fenster not only examines the case that changed Lincoln's fate, but portrays his day-to-day life as a circuit lawyer and how it shaped him as a politician. In a book that draws a picture of Lincoln in court and at home during that memorable season of 1856, Fenster also offers a close-up look at Lincoln's political work, much of it masterful, some of it adventurous, in building the party that would change his fate - and that of the nation.
"This is a worthy addition to our ever-expanding knowledge concerning America's secular saint." - Booklist.
"Starred Review. An unexpected, odd-angle approach to Lincoln that proves marvelously insightful." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Starred Review. Fenster's rhythms have Twain-like timing. . . . Grandiloquent statements, dark adumbrations of the president-to-be or the tragedies with which his name is now inescapably entwined, are not necessary. Fenster knows that."
- Library Journal.
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With a foreword by Douglas Brinkley.

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