Lincoln Heritage Museum to host Ron Keller book signing event Thursday evening

[June 26, 2019]   LINCOLN - The Lincoln Heritage Museum will open its doors at 5:30 PM to allow guests to mingle with author Ron Keller, browse the first floor of the Museum for free, purchase Lincoln in the Illinois Legislature and have copies signed. At 6:00 PM Keller will discuss his book and afterwards he will be available to sign more copies.

In Lincoln and the Illinois Legislature, an indispensable account of Abraham Lincoln’s earliest political years, Ron J. Keller reassesses Lincoln’s arguably lackluster legislative record during four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives to reveal how the underpinnings of his temperament, leadership skills, and political acumen were bolstered on the statehouse floor.

Of about sixteen hundred bills, resolutions, and petitions passed from 1834 to 1842, Lincoln introduced only about thirty of them. The issue he most ardently championed and shepherded through the legislature—the internal improvements system—left the state in debt for more than a generation.

Despite that spotty record, Keller argues, it was during these early years that Lincoln displayed and honed the traits that would allow him to excel in politics and ultimately define his legacy: honesty, equality, empathy, and leadership. Keller reanimates Lincoln’s time in the Illinois legislature to reveal the formation of Lincoln’s strong character and political philosophy in those early years, which allowed him to rise to prominence as the Whig Party’s floor leader regardless of setbacks and to build a framework for his future.

Ron J. Keller is an associate professor of history and political science and the managing director of the Abraham Lincoln Center for Character Development at Lincoln College. He is a coauthor of Abraham Lincoln in Logan County, Illinois, 1834–1860 and A Respect for the Office: Letters from the Presidents. A past director of the Lincoln Heritage Museum, he serves on the board of the Abraham Lincoln Association and is an adviser to the Lincoln Forum.

[Anne E. Moseley, CIT
Lincoln Heritage Museum, Director & Curator
Lincoln College]