A01=Guy Fraker
alcohol
Almanac Trial
Author_Guy Fraker
award-winning
Bailey v. Cromwell and McNaughton
Barrett v. Alton & Sangamon Railroad
Black Hawk War
Bloomington
Category=DNBH
Category=JPHL
Category=NHK
Central Illinois history
Chicago
Clinton
David Davis
Edward Bates
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
James C. Conkling
Simon Cameron
Stephen A. Douglas
Product details
- ISBN 9780809332014
- Weight: 630g
- Dimensions: 160 x 231mm
- Publication Date: 26 Oct 2012
- Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Throughout his twenty-three-year legal career, Abraham Lincoln spent nearly as much time on the road as an attorney for the Eighth Judicial Circuit as he did in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. Yet most historians gloss over the time and instead have Lincoln emerge fully formed as a skillful politician in 1858. In this innovative volume, Guy C. Fraker provides the first-ever study of Lincoln's professional and personal home away from home and demonstrates how the Eighth Judicial Circuit and its people propelled Lincoln to the presidency. Each spring and fall, Lincoln traveled to as many as fourteen county seats in the Eighth Judicial Circuit to appear in consecutive court sessions over a ten- to twelve-week period. Fraker describes the people and counties that Lincoln encountered, discusses key cases Lincoln handled, and introduces the important friends he made, friends who eventually formed the team that executed Lincoln's nomination strategy at the Chicago Republican Convention in 1860 and won him the presidential nomination. As Fraker shows, the Eighth Judicial Circuit provided the perfect setting for the growth and ascension of Lincoln. A complete portrait of the sixteenth president depends on a full understanding of his experience on the circuit, and Lincoln's Ladder to the Presidency provides that understanding as well as a fresh perspective on the much-studied figure, thus deepening our understanding of the roots of his political influence and acumen.
Guy C. Fraker, an attorney in Bloomington, Illinois, has written extensively and lectures frequently on the Eighth Circuit. He was the consultant on the award-winning PBS documentary, 'Lincoln, Prelude to the Presidency,' and co-curated 'Prologue to the Presidency: Abraham Lincoln on the Illinois Eighth Judicial Circuit,' a traveling exhibit also on permanent display at the David Davis Mansion, a state historic site in Bloomington. He served as an advisor to the National Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. A graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, he is a past president of the McLean County Bar Association.
