Abraham Lincoln 218th Birthday Event: Symposium & Banquet

2027 Banquet Keynote Speaker

2027 Symposium Speakers

“Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln​”

Matthew Pinsker is the Pohanka Chair in American Civil War History at Dickinson College, where he also directs the House Divided Project, an acclaimed digital resource on the Civil War era. His scholarship focuses on Abraham Lincoln, American political and constitutional history, the Civil War, and resistance to slavery. Pinsker is the author of Lincoln’s Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers’ Home and Abraham Lincoln, as well as the newly released Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln, which explores Lincoln’s career as a party leader, coalition builder, and political strategist. A graduate of Harvard College, Pinsker earned his D.Phil. in modern history from the University of Oxford.

“Sisters Divided by War: Mary Lincoln and Emilie Todd Helm”

The Civil War divided the Todd family as sharply as it divided the nation. Mary Lincoln stood beside the Union president, while her younger half-sister Emilie Todd Helm was married to Confederate general Benjamin Hardin Helm. Yet war, death, and widowhood bound the sisters together in ways politics could not erase.

Lois Romano, author of the New York Times bestseller An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial, and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln, joins historian Angela Esco Elder, whose scholarship has explored Emilie Todd Helm and the experiences of Civil War widows, for a conversation about two remarkable sisters caught on opposite sides of the country’s greatest conflict. Their discussion will explore family loyalty, grief, widowhood, reconciliation, and the complicated place both women occupied in the Lincoln story.

Lincoln historian Jason Emerson, author of several books on Mary Lincoln and the Lincoln family, moderates the conversation.

“Lincoln, Ethics, and the Law”

Abraham Lincoln’s life and presidency were shaped by hard questions of law, conscience, duty, and political judgment. In this conversation, Roger Billings and Joshua Claybourn draw on their forthcoming books to explore how Lincoln understood the relationship between legal obligation and moral responsibility—and what his example can still teach us about the practice of law and public life.

Drawing from Lincoln’s career as a lawyer and politician, Billings and Claybourn will consider how he confronted conflicts between law and justice, balanced principle against practical necessity, and developed the moral framework that guided some of the most consequential decisions in American history.

“Lincoln as Commander in Chief”

Abraham Lincoln entered the presidency with little military experience and soon faced the greatest armed conflict in American history. How did he learn to direct a vast war effort, manage strong-willed generals, and reconcile military necessity with political and constitutional demands?

Civil War historians Kenneth Noe and Gary Gallagher examine Lincoln’s growth as commander in chief, his relationships with the generals who fought the war, and the strategic choices that shaped Union victory. Their conversation will explore what Lincoln expected from his commanders, how he responded to failure and disagreement, and how presidential leadership influenced the course of the war. Historian Cecily Zander, whose work spans the Civil War, the U.S. Army, and nineteenth-century politics, moderates the discussion.

“Lincoln and His Advisers: From Election to War”

Abraham Lincoln’s rise to the presidency and his first months in office tested his judgment, political instincts, and ability to choose and manage advisers. Jonathan Earle, author of the new He Has the People: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860, examines the campaign that carried Lincoln from relative obscurity to the presidency, including the political organization and personalities behind his victory.

Edward Achorn, author of the forthcoming Lincoln Alone: The Harrowing Four Months that Led to Civil War but Saved the Nation, turns to the extraordinary opening months of Lincoln’s administration, when the new president confronted secession, Fort Sumter, war, and intense disagreement within his own government.

Together, Earle and Achorn will explore how Lincoln chose whom to trust, weighed competing advice, managed strong personalities, and grew into the demands of the presidency. Historian Andrew Lang moderates a conversation spanning the campaign of 1860 through the opening crisis of the Civil War.