With Charity for All

" Winner of the 1998 Lincoln Prize, 2nd Place ""This is the best book I have ever read about Reconstruction during the Lincoln administration. With Charity for All offers a powerful argument for the continuity of Lincoln's generous approach to Reconstruction, and it provides a wealth of information showing how the president's mind worked. I only wish I had had this first-rate book before me when I was writing my Lincoln biography."" --David Herbert Donald, Journal of American History Harris maintains that Lincoln held a fundamentally conservative position on the process of reintegrating the South, one that permitted a large measure of self-reconstruction, and that he did not modify his position late in the war. He examines the reasoning and ideology behind Lincoln's policies, describes what happened when military and civil agents tried to implement them at the local level, and evaluates Lincoln's successes and failures in bringing his restoration efforts to closure.

William C. Harris is professor of history at North Carolina State University.