Content about Lincoln

03.21.09

One of the superb essays in the Claremont Review of Books Lincoln bicentennial issue is Professor John Briggs's discussion of Lincoln's interest in Shakespeare. Professor Briggs makes the point that Shakespeare's plays were ubiquitous in antebellum America. He recalls that Macbeth turned up at a critical point in the Webster-Hayne debate in 1830, when Hayne and Webster differed on the meaning of Banquo's ghost: