Civil War scholars to lead Williams lecture on Lincoln, 13th Amendment next month

Contact: Pattye Archer

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Noted Civil War experts Brandi C. Brimmer and Judith Giesberg are leading a discussion on the 16th president and the amendment abolishing slavery during the eighth annual Frank and Virginia Williams Lecture Series on Abraham Lincoln and Civil War Studies.

Set for Oct. 2, “Lincoln and the Constitution: The 13th Amendment—a Conversation Between Scholars” is at 6 p.m. in the John Grisham Room of Mitchell Memorial Library. A book signing and reception follow. To assist with parking, university traffic gates will open at 5:15 p.m.

“Lincoln and his fellow Americans revered the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—two documents that guided the republic from its founding—but he and many contemporaries also recognized a contradiction between them,” said Susannah Ural, the Frank and Virginia Williams Chair for Abraham Lincoln and Civil War Studies who will moderate the discussion. “As we embark on the celebrations of our nation’s founding and the 160th anniversary of the 13th Amendment, it’s worth taking a moment to examine how Lincoln and his fellow Americans pursued their dreams for ‘a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’”

Brimmer serves as the Morehead-Cain alumni associate professor in the University of North Carolina Department of African, African American and Diaspora Studies, and Giesberg is the Robert M. Birmingham chair in the humanities and professor of history at Villanova University.

The Frank and Virginia Williams Lecture Series on Abraham Lincoln and Civil War Studies is made possible by Frank and Virginia Williams, the MSU Office of the Provost and MSU Libraries. For more information about the Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana, visit www.library.msstate.edu/williamscollection.

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