LINCOLN'S VIRTUES(ISBN=9780375701733)

William Lee Miller’s ethical biography is a fresh, engaging telling of the story of Lincoln’s rise to power. Through careful scrutiny of Lincoln’s actions, speeches, and writings, and of accounts from those who knew him, Miller gives us insight into the moral development of a great politician — one who made the choice to go into politics, and ultimately realized that vocation’s fullest moral possibilities.
As Lincoln’s Virtues makes refreshingly clear, Lincoln was not born with his face on Mount Rushmore; he was an actual human being making choices — moral choices — in a real world. In an account animated by wit and humor, Miller follows this unschooled frontier politician’s rise, showing that the higher he went and the greater his power, the worthier his conduct would become. He would become that rare bird, a great man who was also a good man. Uniquely revealing of its subject’s heart and mind, it represents a major contribution to our understanding and of Lincoln, and to the perennial American discussion of the relationship between politics and morality.

William Lee Miller has taught at Yale University, Smith College, Indiana University, and the University of Virginia, where he is currently Miller Center of Public Affairs Scholar in Ethics and Institutions. He has been an editor and writer on a political magazine, a speechwriter, and a three-term alderman. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Arguing About Slavery, which won the D.B. Hardeman Prize for the best book on Congress.

Preface: The Mo~al Preparation of a Great Politician
Chapter Onez Who Is This Fellow? He Is Smarter
Than He Looks
 1. A Startling Disparity
 2, Moral Reasoning
 3. Disregarding Legends
 4. Destiny Obscure?
Chapter Two, Noble Rage
 1. Young Lincoln's Great Rejections,
 2. The Lifeline of Print
Chapter Three: He Will Be Good--But God Knows When
 1. Poor Man, Free Man, Free Moral Agent
 2. He Studied with No One
 3. Tom Lincoln and His Boy
 4. The Awkward Age of Go0dness
 5. A Name That Fills All the Nation and Is Not Unknown Even
 in Foreign Lands
Chapter Four: I Want in All Cases to Do Right
 1. Humor in His Composition
 2. Not a Rebel, Not a Revolutionary
 3. The Gem of His Character
……