The Magnanimity of President Lincoln

Thursday, February 12, 2009
7:30 p.m. at the Modlin Center for the Arts
Presented by William Lee Miller

This lecture will be followed by a performance of Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait by the University Orchestra, Alexander Kordzaia, conductor. Narration will be provided by Astronaut Leland Melvin, Jepson School Leader-in-Residence 2008–09.
A book signing and reception will follow.

From the first minute of his presidency, Lincoln confronted the radical moral contradiction left by the nation’s Founders: universal ideals of equality and liberty and the monstrous injustice of slavery. Drawn to the Lincoln presidency as a case study in political ethics, William Lee Miller first explored Abraham Lincoln’s intellectual and moral development in Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography. With his 2008 book President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman, Dr. Miller completed his “ethical biography” of a backcountry politician transformed by constitutional alchemy into an oath-bound head of state. Dr. Miller will talk about Lincoln’s resolve, judgment, humility, and (particularly) his magnanimity, and share his understanding of the qualities that Lincoln developed as he led the nation during its gravest crisis.