Williams, the chairman, and carol hauser, the vicechairman, who have both devoted themselves for decades to writing and education on abraham lincoln. I am particularly pleased to be here on the 21st lincoln forum. As frank noted, this year i published the first of a multivolume political biography of lincoln entitled the selfmade man. It describes a poor, stunted and oppressed boy who hammers together, on his own, the elements of the man who will be lincoln. The second volume, to be published next year, entitled wrestling with his angel places with his angel, places lincoln entering the political wilderness after leaving the congress and emerging as the man who was lincoln. I am speaking here tonight about this crucible, the period in which lincoln committed himself to putting slavery on the course of ultimate extinction as he declared in his cooper union address. And as he grappled to create the means to his ends. Lincoln had always been, as he put it, naturally antislavery. He was on