Lincoln Unbound: How an Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved the American Dream--and How We Can Do It Again

By Rich Lowry

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, History

National Review editor Rich Lowry argues in this 2013 book that Abraham Lincoln's deepest political commitment was to economic opportunity. Lincoln grew up doing hard farm labor under his father and worked his way up as a rail-splitter, store clerk, surveyor and lawyer. Lowry traces how that experience shaped his support for banks, railroads, schooling and free labor, and his opposition to slavery as a theft of a person's work. He closes by urging a return to Lincoln's vision of upward mobility.

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