Becoming Lincoln / William W. Freehling.

Introduction
Prologue: A puzzling inauguration
The rising Lincolns and the Kentucky plummet
The Indiana plunge
The Illinois crash
The New Salem recovery
The rise and fall of a state legislator
The rise and limits of a pre-1850s lawyer
The rise and turbulence of a marriage
A congressional aspirant's rise
The Congressional fall
The Union's economic rescue
Three climactic railroad cases
The Peoria address and the strategy of defense
The 1855 setback
The lost/found speech
The Dred Scott case and the Kansas finale
The great debates
The cunning revisions
The Cooper Union address
The Presidential election and the fruits of revision
The erratic interregnum
The troubled inaugural address
Forts Sumter and Pickens and the emergence of an impressive administrator
Epilogue: (Slowly) Becoming a coercive emancipator.