Most studies of Abraham Lincoln typically focus on his experiences in the White House. This course instead emphasizes the prewar years, revealing how  Lincoln came to be the extraordinary leader who would guide the nation through its most bitter chapter. Divided into four classes, “Becoming Lincoln” traces the early years of Lincoln from his tough childhood through his incarnations as a tragic figure in personal suffering and deep melancholy, who was bankrupt with few prospects but overcame much turmoil to find the strength that he needed to fulfill the embodiment of the self-made man charts his meteoric rise as a canny two-party politician with acumen and leadership skills; examines a talented country lawyer whose twenty-five years in the Illinois courts prepared him to deal with constitutional legal debates during the Civil War era; and charts the rise of a moderately conservative politician who revered the Founders and advocated for the Union first, but who also was morally opposed to slavery as he carefully developed a political strategy to combat the peculiar institutions’ expansion westward.