Lincoln and the Immigrant (Concise Lincoln Library) - Hardcover

Silverman, Jason H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809334348 ISBN 13: 9780809334346

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Pr, 2015

Synopsis

Lincoln’s enduring relationship with the American immigrant

Between 1840 and 1860, America received more than four and a half million people from foreign countries as permanent residents, including a huge influx of newcomers from northern and western Europe, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who became Americans with the annexation of Texas and the Mexican Cession, and a smaller number of Chinese immigrants. While some Americans sought to make immigration more difficult and to curtail the rights afforded to immigrants, Abraham Lincoln advocated for the rights of all classes of citizens. In this succinct study, Jason H. Silverman investigates Lincoln’s evolving personal, professional, and political relationship with the wide variety of immigrant groups he encountered throughout his life, revealing that Lincoln related to the immigrant in a manner few of his contemporaries would or could emulate. From an early age, Silverman shows, Lincoln developed an awareness of and a tolerance for different peoples and their cultures, and he displayed an affinity for immigrants throughout his legal and political career. Silverman reveals how immigrants affected not only Lincoln’s daytoday life but also his presidential policies Lincoln’s opposition to the Know Nothing Party and the antiforeign attitudes in his own Republican Party, his reliance on German support for his 1860 presidential victory, his appointment of political generals of varying ethnicities, and his reliance on an immigrant for the literal rules of war. The first book to examine Lincoln and the place of the immigrant in America’s society and economy, Silverman’s pioneering work offers a rare new perspective on the renowned sixteenth president.

About this title

About the Author

Jason H. Silverman is the Ellison Capers Palmer Jr. Professor of History at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He is the author, coauthor, or coeditor of ten books, including Immigration in the American South, 1864–1895: A Documentary History of the Southern Immigration Conventions and A Rising Star of Promise: The Civil War Odyssey of David Jackson Logan, 17th South Carolina Infantry, 1861–1864.

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Pr
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809334348
• ISBN 13: 9780809334346
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160