I read this just last night.  There's nobody better.

It's not that it's out of stock--just hasn't been officially released yet.

For Stillman fans, you would surely enjoy this book, Doomed Bourgeios in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman.  I use Metropolitan to help me explain Tocqueville's idea of "forms" in Democracy in America.

I was also surprised to learn this: FDR was also suspicious of public sector unions.  From an essay in National Affairs by Dan DiSalvo:

Even President Franklin Roosevelt, a friend of private-sector unionism, drew a line when it came to government workers: "Meticulous attention," the president insisted in 1937, "should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government....The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service." The reason? F.D.R. believed that "[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable." Roosevelt was hardly alone in holding these views, even among the champions of organized labor. Indeed, the first president of the AFL-CIO, George Meany, believed it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government."

This is NOT at all what Miller intends his readers to take away from his book.  Miller does not turn up his nose at Lincoln's mileiu--nor does he claim Lincoln did.  Nonetheless, Lincoln did stand apart from his surroundings in many ways.  But the point of my post was to put this apartness together with Lincoln's evident affection and sympathy for his people.

By the way, has anyone read Miller's sequel to Lincoln's Virtues, called President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman?

Thank you Robert, that is indeed the letter I had in mind.  It's an impressive display.  Lincoln shows Hooker that he sees right through him.  It must have sent a chill down Hooker's spine.

There's also a wonderful letter he wrote to General Hooker--I'll track down the date for you--need to get to my office.

Maybe this should be a post, but the best Lincoln books in my view:

Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided

John C. Briggs, Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered

Allen Guelzo, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America

Lord Charnwood, Abraham Lincoln

Richard Cawardine, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power

Katie,

I still can't believe you attended Solzhenitsyn's Liechtenstein address!!!

The essays of Orwell and Ralph Ellison are my models.

Well done Robert.

The wonders of The Three Amigos!  Favorite lines, scenes, etc.

Bill, I remember reading that essay when it came out.  I was so enthralled--I was reading it on the subway in NYC and missed my stop.  Simply one of the best personal essays I have ever read.  My hard copy of that issue of Commentary is somewhere in my basement--now I will go find it.

Lincoln gave a speech to a Temperance Society on Washington's birthday in 1842.  Here's the last paragraph:

"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of Washington.  We are met to celebrate this day.  Washington is the mightiest name of earth--long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty; still mightiest in moral reformation.  On that name an eulogy is expected.  It cannot be.  To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the name of Washington, is alike impossible.  Let none attempt it.  In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendor, leave it shining on."

That last line is simply wonderful (spoken in my best Peter Robinson voice).

Yakovlev's book is a real gem!