Yes, Blackstone’s “Commentaries” influenced Abraham Lincoln (and here’s the proof)

“The election of 1834 came, and [Abraham Lincoln] was then elected to the Legislature [of Illinois] by the highest vote cast for any candidate. Major John T. Stuart, then in full practice of the law, was also elected. During the canvass, in a private conversation he encouraged [Abe to] study law. After the election [Abe] borrowed books of Stuart, took them home with him, and went at it in good earnest. He studied with nobody. He still mixed in the surveying to pay board and clothing bills. When the Legislature met, the law books were dropped, but were taken up again at the end of the session.”

– Abraham Lincoln’s “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps” (circa June 1860), in which Lincoln strangely is referring to himself in the third person (as shown above)

There was an official campaign biography of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 …

Sir William Blackstone died nearly three decades before Abraham Lincoln was born. But Blackstone would nonetheless have an influence on the young Lincoln through one of his books, as many others have noted. In the year 1860, William Dean Howells wrote the “Life of Abraham Lincoln,” the official campaign biography of Abraham Lincoln (not to be confused with the above-quoted autobiography). This campaign biography was subject to revisions by Lincoln himself. Lincoln did indeed make some modifications whenever he deemed it necessary, but he did not alter the part about Blackstone that I’m going to quote here.

Sir William Blackstone

… which briefly talked about Lincoln’s legal education back in the 1830’s

The passage is about Lincoln’s legal education, which seems to have been gained sometime back in the 1830’s. Lincoln was in his twenties when getting this education. Thus, here is the portion of this biography about Lincoln’s reading of Sir William Blackstone:

William Dean Howells, author of this campaign biography of Lincoln

A review of “Gold, Hard Money, and Financial Gurus” (audiobook)

So I was recently listening to some additional presentations from an audio series about investment. This particular installment was called “Gold, Hard Money, and Financial Gurus.” I found out that it was actually two presentations: one about “Gold Bugs and Hard Money,” and one about “Financial Writers and Gurus.” Both were as interesting as I expected them to be, and brought back fond memories of my days as a business major.

A review of “William James, Charles Peirce, and American Pragmatism” (audiobook)

William James and Charles Sanders Peirce are two of the most influential philosophers to come out of the United States. They made contributions to a field called “philosophy of science,” which studies the proper foundation of scientific knowledge. Each of them had things to say about it, but their differences would later turn out to be quite substantial. Nonetheless, there is also significant overlap between them, which may be why they are still covered together in this audiobook. They were among the founders of a school called “pragmatism,” which was born in America in the 1870’s. Its influence would continue well beyond the deaths of these two remarkable men, who died within four years of each other in the early twentieth century.

John Adams praised James Harrington’s “The Commonwealth of Oceana”

“These are what are called revolution-principles. They are the principles of Aristotle and Plato, of Livy and Cicero, of Sydney, Harrington and Lock[e].—The principles of nature and eternal reason.—The principles on which the whole government over us, now stands.”

– John Adams (writing under the pen name of “Novanglus”), in a letter “To the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, 23 January 1775”

John Adams was a great fan of the English political writer James Harrington

In 1656, the English political writer James Harrington wrote a book called “The Commonwealth of Oceana.” In this work, James Harrington advocated a republic, calling it the “ideal” form of government (or words to that effect). I should give a disclaimer that I have not read Harrington’s “Oceana,” and I don’t yet know how much I would agree with it. But it is clear that John Adams was a great fan of it. John Adams would later give great praise of both this book and its author. In 1775, Adams wrote a series of letters under the pen name of “Novanglus.” In one of these letters (the one quoted above), Adams credited Harrington with “revolution-principles.” But Adams also wrote another letter addressed “To the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay” (among others). One of them contains some more of his praise of James Harrington. Thus, I would like to quote from what John Adams said, to show how Harrington had an influence on the young John Adams.

James Harrington

A review of “Isaac Newton’s New Physics” (audiobook)

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

– Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke on 5 February 1675

Sir Isaac Newton revolutionized how human beings see the world … and the universe. He may have been the most influential scientist of all time. It is said that Albert Einstein kept a picture of Newton on his “study wall,” alongside his other pictures of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. But in Newton’s time, the word “scientist” did not exist yet, nor did the phrase “natural science.” Instead, the subject was described as “natural philosophy,” making Newton into a “natural philosopher.” In modern philosophical terms, Newton would be in the empirical tradition, although he showed the influence of some Continental Rationalists like René Descartes as well.

Reflections on learning about early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism

“Typically, Jewish history and Christian history are taught by different teachers; they are even considered different disciplines. As Oxford don Geza Vermes points out in his introduction, this book is unique; it is a parallel history of early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, an attempt to trace their stories side by side.”

– Hershel Shanks, in his Foreword to “Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development,” page xv

What is “Rabbinic Judaism,” and when (and where) does it come from?

Judaism was the first of the major Abrahamic religions, and the only one until the advent of Christianity in the first century. Since it is still around today, Judaism is by far the oldest of these religions. You might already know that it is today split into many different camps. But the vast majority of these camps could be classified (in one form or another) as “Rabbinic Judaism.” What is “Rabbinic Judaism,” you might be wondering? It is simply Judaism where a “rabbi” is important, because “rabbi” is the biggest root word of the word “Rabbinic.” “Rabbinic Judaism” was born shortly before the advent of Christianity, although it seems not to have been known by that name at that time.

An artist’s rendition of the Temple of Solomon, sometimes known as the “First Temple”

A review of William Lloyd Garrison’s “The Liberator” (audiobook)

“On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; -- but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

– First issue of William Lloyd Garrison’s “The Liberator,” in a column entitled “To the Public” (published January 1, 1831)

William Lloyd Garrison campaigned tirelessly against the institution of slavery. For 35 years, he published an influential antislavery newspaper that was aptly titled “The Liberator.” It had a modest circulation of only 3,000, but there were many influential people in its readership. These included the former slave Frederick Douglass, who would go on to become a tireless antislavery campaigner in his own right.