Radio Smart Talk for Monday, February 28th:

"In a way, we have found it too easy to understand Abraham Lincoln. We think we know him, because in looking at Lincoln, we are really discovering ourselves," writes Dr. Eric Foner in his book The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

And yet, what we think we know about President Lincoln is linked to his almost mythic persona as the Great Emancipator.

Foner, a Professor of History at Columbia University, suggests that's what's wrong with much recent work on Lincoln – that his ideas and actions are explained by many modern historians in terms of a constant political philosophy. But Foner says Lincoln's views and policies towards slavery were more complicated than that. He traces the evolution of Lincoln's ideas towards slavery from his early life, through his rise in Illinois politics, then to Congress and the Presidency. What is revealed is a figure who "occupied different places" on what Charles Sumner called the "antislavery enterprise."

Listen to the program: