Legacies of Lincoln
The Legacies of Lincoln Conference, a joint undertaking of the Law School and the Department of History, was an impressive event last week. It began on Thursday evening, with Allen Guelzo, Gettysburg College’s renowned Lincoln historian, delivering the History Department’s annual Klement Lecture. There then followed on Friday three panels, variously addressing “Lincoln and Politics,” “Lincoln and the Constitution,” and “Lincoln as Lawyer,” and respectively led by Heather Cox Richardson of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Michael Les Benedict of The Ohio State University, and Mark E. Steiner of the South Texas College of Law. The other panelists were James Marten and Alison Clark Efford of Marquette’s History Department (politics panel), Stephen Kantrowitz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Kate Masur of Northwestern University (Constitution panel), and two of our part-time faculty (for the Lincoln-as-lawyer panel): Joseph S. Ranney, III, of Dewitt Ross & Stevens and Thomas L. Shriner, Jr., or Foley & Lardner. Audio of the three panels is available on the Law School’s webcast page. A number of the participants will permit the Law School to publish papers reflecting their remarks, and I expect that, as the different papers are ready over the course of the time to come, Dan Blinka or I will use this blog to share them with interested readers. A special thanks to Jim Marten and to Dan Blinka for their roles in putting this conference together.