Matthew Pinsker holds the Brian Pohanka Chair for Civil War History at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. He is the author of Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers' Home (Oxford, 2003) and has served since 2006 as the Project Director for the NEH Landmarks of the Underground Railroad workshops held each summer for K-12 educators. In 2006, Matt was a Visiting Fellow at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He currently serves on the advisory boards of Ford's Theatre, Lincoln Cottage, Pennsylania Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, and the National Civil War Museum. Matt graduated with honors from Harvard and received his doctorate from the University of Oxford. For 2008 through 2010, he has been designated as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians (OAH).
Pinsker
will speak on the topic of "Abraham Lincoln and the House Divided Era,"
addressing how President Lincoln, a southerner by birth and a northerner
by outlook, attempted to use campaigns and elections as a means of reconciling
a nation ripped apart by slavery. Especially in an age when constitutional
rules, whether over slavery, secession or even West Virginia statehood,
seemed so contested and fluid, it was remarkable that Lincoln maintained
that only the nation's much maligned electoral process was the true fixed
star of the American constitutional system.