Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties

Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties

On April 10, in recognition of the Bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the Round Table is pleased to welcome Frank J. Williams, the recently retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and one of the country's most renowned experts on Abraham Lincoln. He is the author or editor of over thirteen books on Lincoln, and has lectured on the subject throughout the country. He has amassed an unsurpassed private library and archive that ranks among the nation's finest Lincoln collections. In 2000, the Chief Justice was appointed to the United States Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to plan events to commemorate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln this year.

Since 1996, Chief Justice Williams has served as founding Chairman of The Lincoln Forum, a national assembly of Lincoln and Civil War devotees. For 9 years, he served as President of the Abraham Lincoln Association and, for 14 years, as President of The Lincoln Group of Boston. He is currently at work on an annotated bibliography of all the Lincoln titles published since 1865. His book of essays, Judging Lincoln, was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2002. He, with Harold Holzer and Edna Greene Medford, has written The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views, Social, Legal and Pictorial just published by Louisiana State University Press. His latest book, Lincoln Lessons: Reflections on America’s Greatest Leader, with William D. Pederson, was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2009. He also serves as Literary Editor of the Lincoln Herald where his quarterly Lincolniana survey appears.

You will not want to miss this special evening as the Round Table celebrates the birth of fellow Kentuckian Abraham Lincoln.

Links to Mr. Williams' works on www.amazon.com:

Judging Lincoln
The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views, Social, Legal and Pictorial
Lincoln Lessons: Reflections on America’s Greatest Leader

And click here for additional amazon.com listings for Frank J. Williams

2009 Field Trip: Chancellorsville Fees Are Due
If you have not paid your field trip fees in full, please do so now. They are now past due. You can mail your check made out to LCWRT with Field Trip on the memo line to Harriette Weatherbee, 1028 Sarah Dr., Louisville, Ky. 40219. The cost of the trip includes bus transportation, guide, hat, gift for guide, picture quiz, Saturday night meal and pizza/beer night. If you signed up for the field trip and are not going, please contact Harriette and let her know.

Book Donations
We are currently accepting book donations for our door prizes. If you have Civil War books you would like to donate, please bring them to one of the meetings and give them to Lowell Griffin our door prize coordinator.

MARCH 2009 QUIZ ANSWERS:

1. John Brown was sentenced to death by what authority and on what charge?
The Commonwealth of Virginia found him guilty of inciting insurrection and hung him. The United States Government did not charge him with treason or anything else.

2. What Southern state is believed to not have had troops fighting for both the North and the South?
Technically none. SOUTH CAROLINA did not have any white troops fighting on both sides, but it did have black troops fighting for the Union.

3. Name the six (or seven) Union officers who became President of the United States.
Ulysses S. Grant, Chester A. Arthur, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes, and William McKinley. (Andrew Johnson was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and served as military governor of Tennessee during the war.)

4. Who was the freed black called "one of the highest placed and most productive espionage agent of the Civil War," and what position did this person hold for part of the war?

Mary Elizabeth Bowser was a spy in Richmond's Confederate White House. As a trusted domestic employee, she used her position to access top-secret information, which she passed on to Union operatives within the city. She worked closely with Elizabeth Van Lew, in whose family she had once been a slave.

5. By late 1864, who commanded what was probably the most experienced Union Army?
General William T. Sherman's army had many men who were reenlistments and had fought in many of the major battles in 1863 and 1864. Although the Union Army of the Potomac was larger, it had the higher percentage of new replacements.

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APRIL 2009 QUIZ:

1. In 1864 Abraham Lincoln ran for reelection as a member of what party?

2. The parents of Thomas Lincoln became concerned because he had not learned to read by what age?

3. What was the name Abraham Lincoln typically used to address his wife?

4. What were the tragic results of the fire in Lincoln's private stables, a brick building on the White House grounds between the mansion and the Treasury Department?

5. What happened to Lincoln's personal copy of the Emancipation Proclamation?