CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

PART ONE: “A Tendency to Melancholly,” 1824–1854

Copybook verses, ca. 1824 ADAM GOPNIK

Letter to Eliza Browning, April 1, 1838 GEORGE SAUNDERS

Letter to John T. Stuart, January 23, 1841 ANDREW SOLOMON

Letter to Mary Speed, September 27, 1841 E. L. DOCTOROW

Letter to Andrew Johnston, Including Poem, September 6, 1846 ROBERT PINSKY

Letter to Mary Lincoln, April 16, 1848 JENNIFER FLEISCHNER

Fragment on Niagara Falls, ca. September 25–30, 1848 CYNTHIA OZICK

Notes on the Practice of Law, ca. 1850 SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR

Fragment on the Object of Government, ca. July 1854 MARIO M. CUOMO

PART TWO: “A House Divided Against Itself,” 1854–1861

Fragment on Dred Scott Decision, ca. December 1856 WALTER MOSLEY

On Stephen Douglas, ca. December 1856 MICHAEL BURLINGAME

Fragment on “The Higher Object of This Contest,” ca. July 1858 LEWIS LEHRMAN

Draft of the “House Divided” Address, June 1858 RICHARD J. DURBIN

Letter to Jesse Fell, Including Autobiographical Sketch, December 20, 1859 KATHRYN HARRISON

Autobiographical Sketch for the Chicago Tribune, June 1860 DOUGLAS L. WILSON

Letter to George D. Prentice, October 29, 1860 JONATHAN ALTER

Farewell to Springfield, February 11, 1861 SAM WATERSTON

PART THREE: “We Cannot Escape History,” 1861–1863

First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861 WILLIAM SAFIRE

Letter to William H. Seward, April 1, 1861 PRESIDENT GEORGE H. W. BUSH

Message to Congress, July 4, 1861 PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

Proclamation Revoking Gen. Hunter’s Emancipation Order, May 19, 1862 FRANK J. WILLIAMS

Reply to Horace Greeley’s Editorial, August 22, 1862 DAVID W. BLIGHT

Meditation on the Divine Will, ca. September 1862 PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER

Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862 JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN

Two Telegrams to Gen. George B. McClellan, May 1, 1862 and October 24, 1862 JAMES M. MCPHERSON

Letter to Fanny McCullough, December 23, 1862 DREW GILPIN FAUST

PART FOUR: “Let the Thing Be Pressed,” 1863–1865

Letter to Gen. Joseph Hooker, January 26, 1863 GABOR BORITT

Telegram to Mary Lincoln, June 9, 1863 THOMAS MALLON

“Albany Letter” to Erastus Corning on Civil Liberties, June 12, 1863 DAVID HERBERT DONALD

Verse on Lee’s Invasion of the North, July 19, 1863 NEWT GINGRICH

Letter to Gen. George G. Meade, July 14, 1863 STEVEN SPIELBERG AND TONY KUSHNER

Letters to James Hackett, August 17, 1863 and November 2, 1863 LIAM NEESON

The Public Letter to James C. Conkling, August 26, 1863 PrESIDENT BILL CLINTON

Letter to Cpt. James M. Cutts, Jr., October 26, 1863 DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 TONI MORRISON

Letter to Gov. Michael Hahn, March 13, 1864 BLISS BROYARD

Letter to Albert Hodges, April 4, 1864 KEN BURNS

Telegrams to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, August 17, 1864 and April 7, 1865 CONAN O’BRIEN

“Blind Memorandum,” August 23, 1864 PHILIP GOUREVITCH

Letter to Eliza P. Gurney, September 4, 1864 JOHN UPDIKE

Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., and SVEN BIRKERTS

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