LECTURES

In March 1861, when Lincoln delivered his First Inaugural, neither he nor many in the audience envisioned that four years later, at his Second, the eradication of slavery would be imminent. What events led to the Emancipation Proclamation? And what would follow as Lincoln led the nation toward his “king’s cure for all the evils,” the Thirteenth Amendment? On the eve of Lincoln’s birthday, William Martin, author of The Lincoln Letter, will explore Lincoln’s passage from the careful Constitutional lawyer of the First Inaugural to the almost messianic figure of the Second.