Professor Eric Foner, CC ’63, discusses a more dynamic Lincoln with new book

Seven score and eight years ago, Abraham Lincoln brought forth a renewed nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated once again to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Eric Foner, CC ’63 and DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, seeks to illuminate this emancipation in Lincoln’s time in his newest book, “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.” One of the nation’s most prominent historians, Foner is known for his landmark scholarship on the Civil War and Reconstruction era. “The Fiery Trial” traces the life of the 16th American president, noting Lincoln’s political shifts and growth by a consistent moral compass on the battlefield toward emancipation.

“Some people see Lincoln as a man born with a pen in his hand, ready to sign the Emancipation Proclamation,” Foner said, sitting in his Fayerweather office, which houses a formidable book collection that includes many of the 22 books he has written to date. “That’s ridiculous—that’s not history.”

In the sea of literature surrounding the revered presidential figure of Lincoln, Foner’s book stands out as a work that situates Lincoln as a product of his time. Dissatisfied with the popular literature that yanks Lincoln out of historical context, Foner attempts to “put Lincoln back fully into history.”

In doing so, some may be surprised to view Lincoln as a multifaceted leader who was anti-slavery but not an abolitionist. Indeed, Lincoln had been a longtime advocate of gradual emancipation through colonization, encouraging African Americans to leave the United States and supporting monetary compensation for slave owners. As detailed in “The Fiery Trial,” it was not until 1862 that Lincoln experienced a wholesale transformation in his attitude and policy toward slavery, upholding immediate emancipation through the Emancipation Proclamation.

This speaks to Lincoln’s sense of flexibility and open-mindedness, as portrayed in the work. “When Lincoln confronted problems and his traditional policies didn’t work, he was willing to change. Today, a politician who changes his mind is called a flip-flopper,” Foner said of Lincoln’s capacity for growth. Not willing to “surround himself with yes men,” Lincoln frequently met with abolitionists and Radical Republicans, remaining receptive to their thoughts. Foner asked, “Who never comes up with new ideas his entire life?”

Foner laughed when asked about the perhaps hackneyed similarities between Barack Obama and Lincoln, but it is difficult to deny the parallels. “Of course Obama tried to channel Lincoln,” he said. “You can’t go wrong by trying.” Obama announced his candidacy in Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield, Ill., and took his presidential oath on the same Bible Lincoln used for his inauguration. As Foner said, both Illinois statesmen “rose to prominence through oratory,” using words as a “political weapon.”

Ultimately, Foner said, “Lincoln is our contemporary in that many of the issues of his time are still our issues—whether it’s race relations or the role of moral values and politics altogether.” There is a timelessness to these matters that shapes the political landscape even today, more than 150 years later. As a Columbia College graduate and a professor since 1982, Foner admitted that, at Columbia, he’s “like a living historical memory of the place” in his own way.

Though he is a city-dweller, Foner also enjoys spending time in the countryside. He mentioned casually that a tree once fell on his house and that this summer, he saw a bear sitting on his front lawn. “It’s very cute through the window, but I’m not sure I’d like to bump into him out there,” he said.

When not “dealing with the assaults of nature,” as he categorized it, Foner is fulfilling his love of teaching through his U.S. in the Era of Civil War and Reconstruction course, which covers Lincoln and his transformation of American society from slavery to emancipation—keeping the discussion of the government of the people, by the people, and for the people from perishing from the earth.