Interview with Allen Guelzo

What would Lincoln do? Leaders and historians often ask this question when America is in a time of crisis. It’s understandable, considering Lincoln’s extraordinary leadership during the darkest and most fragile period in the country’s history. 

Today, our nation confronts a vast array of serious challenges that threaten to undermine its strength and the trust of its citizens. Underscoring this point is a recent poll showing that only 28 percent of Americans are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the U.S.

Our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom is Dr. Allen Guelzo, a preeminent authority on President Lincoln. As America navigates another time of strife, we turned to him for answers to the perennial question – what would Lincoln do? 

Allen Guelzo is a New York Times bestselling author, American historian, and commentator on public issues. He is Director of the James Madison Program Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship and Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. 

Topics discussed on this episode: 

• Why Dr. Guelzo focused his scholarship on Lincoln
• The many unexplored angles and aspects of Lincoln
• Lincoln’s character and complexity
• Lessons to be learned from Lincoln’s leadership
• Whether democracy is currently in peril
• Election integrity in Lincoln’s time compared to today
• How citizens can restore trust in each other
• What could have been different if Lincoln wasn’t assassinated
• How Dr. Guelzo himself became a distinguished orator

Previously, he was the Director of Civil War Era Studies and the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He is a 2018 Bradley Prize winner.