Lincoln and the Press

From the files of newspapers active during the Civil War period comes the story of Lincoln and the press. Freedom of the press, guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, was established as one of the blessings of democracy. But the molders of the Constitution made no provision for handling a sectional and intensely partisan press in a period of civil strife. The struggle between the opposition press and the Federal government--long since forgotten and interred with the bones of Lincoln's contemporaries--was one of the major problems of the great conflict. Deep-lying political currents were brought into the open to plague a harassed president trying to save the Union. From the pages of the Civil War period there emerges a new facet to the many-sided Lincoln and there emerges, too, the heretofore untold story of significant events on the home front.--Preface.