NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The New York Times bestselling author of George Washington's Secret
Six and Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates turns to two other
heroes of the nation: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
In The President and the Freedom Fighter, Brian Kilmeade tells the
little-known story of how two American heroes moved from strong
disagreement to friendship, and in the process changed the entire course
of history.
Abraham Lincoln was White, born impoverished on a frontier farm.
Frederick Douglass was Black, a child of slavery who had risked his life
escaping to freedom in the North. Neither man had a formal education,
and neither had had an easy path to influence. No one would have
expected them to become friends--or to transform the country. But
Lincoln and Douglass believed in their nation's greatness. They were
determined to make the grand democratic experiment live up to its
ideals.
Lincoln's problem: he knew it was time for slavery to go, but how fast
could the country change without being torn apart? And would it be
possible to get rid of slavery while keeping America's Constitution
intact? Douglass said no, that the Constitution was irredeemably
corrupted by slavery--and he wanted Lincoln to move quickly. Sharing
little more than the conviction that slavery was wrong, the two men's
paths eventually converged. Over the course of the Civil War, they'd
endure bloodthirsty mobs, feverish conspiracies, devastating losses on
the battlefield, and a growing firestorm of unrest that would culminate
on the fields of Gettysburg.
As he did in George Washington's Secret Six, Kilmeade has transformed
this nearly forgotten slice of history into a dramatic story that will
keep you turning the pages to find out how these two heroes, through
their principles and patience, not only changed each other, but made
America truly free for all.
