Kearns Goodwin begins with a brief overview of Abraham Lincoln’s political genius and personal qualities. She presents Lincoln as a man of great “decency and morality” who with “a profound self-awareness that enabled him to find constructive ways to alleviate sadness and stress” (xvii). She notes:

Without the march of events that led to the Civil War, Lincoln still would have been a good man, but most likely would never have been publicly recognized as a great man. It was history that gave him the opportunity to manifest his greatness, providing the stage that allowed him to shape and transform our national life. (xix)

Kearns Goodwin also discusses her methodology, noting that by expanding her study to include Lincoln’s contemporaries and their families she was able to make use of a broader set of primary sources than have previously been used in biographies of Lincoln.

Chapter 1 begins at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in 1860, where the newly formed political party is getting ready to choose its presidential candidate. The time is tense, as the country is embroiled in a battle over whether to allow slavery to expand into its new territories.

The contenders for the nomination are

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