February 21, 2012 As a young man in frontier Illinois, Abraham Lincoln became convinced that slavery was wrong. How to end the injustice, and whether to treat the former slaves as equal citizens, were questions Lincoln wrestled with for most of his life. These struggles are the subject of Eric Foner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. On February 23 at 6:30 p.m., Foner will give the Belle McWilliams Lecture in American History in the UC Theater at the University of Memphis.
Read moreFighting a Monstrous Injustice
Historian Eric Foner talks with Chapter 16 about Abraham Lincoln’s complex views on slavery and race