HISTORY: PATRICK PRENDERGASTreviews The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American SlaveryBy Eric Foner WW Norton Co, 424pp. £21

WHEN BARACK OBAMA’S great- great-great-grandfather Falmouth Kearney emigrated to the United States from Co Offaly, in 1850, it was to a country of more than three million slaves, a number that would rise rapidly to nearly four million by the time of Abraham Lincoln’s election, in 1860. Slavery was prospering, and was set to expand westwards as more states were admitted to the union. Abolitionists were few, and often derided by mainstream politicians. Lincoln himself was not an abolitionist at that time.

This book traces Lincoln’s political journey regarding slavery. It began when he was elected to the Illinois state legislature and continued until the day of his assassination. Eric Foner describes the full-on political action of congressional elections, and Lincoln’s own manoeuvring for election in 1860 and re-election in 1864. Foner describes how Lincoln simultaneously followed and created the critical shifts in public opinion. In particular he shows how the idea that the American Civil War was being fought to defend the union shifted to a sense that the rebirth of freedom through the abolition of slavery was the war’s defining purpose.

Foner’s study is strong on the detail yet draws the reader into a compelling narrative that exposes the interaction between public opinion and Lincoln’s character and experience; this fortunate confluence, as much as anything else, brought the rapid end to American slavery. Even though much could have been done by executive fiat, and Lincoln was continuously urged by abolitionists to do so, he never let the line between himself and public opinion break. He judged each step skilfully, sometimes ahead of public opinion and sometimes not, on issues such as the emancipation of southern slaves, the recruitment of black soldiers into the union armies, and the suffrage of freed people.

It was not just a matter of taking the people with him, as many simplistic modern accounts of leadership often have it; it was also recognising when he should be taken with them. An elected office creates a leader of the people in a real sense; transformational leaders must at once have the capacity to be part of the change while being able to see it happen like an outsider, articulating society’s better nature to itself in return. Thus Lincoln’s message to the US Congress in 1862:

The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honour or dishonour, to the latest generation . . . We – even we here – hold the power and bear the responsibility.

Eventually union forces entered the Confederate capital at Richmond, where, according to a letter of the time, “the doors of all the slave pens were thrown open, and thousands came out shouting and praising God, and Father, or Master Abe”.

This transformation was not a foregone conclusion. Lincoln did not come into office proclaiming any grand vision for the end of slavery. He steered a pragmatic course. It is said he compared his political philosophy to that of a steamboat captain on the Mississippi, taking a bearing and heading towards it, and again another bearing when that one was reached. As with Ireland’s own stepping stones to freedom, Lincoln’s steps led in a short time to one of the greatest emancipations in history.

Hundreds of books and articles are published on Lincoln and the American Civil War every year. There is even an annual award worth €50,000, the Lincoln Prize, awarded to the best piece of work submitted. This year few were surprised when the winner was this magisterial study by Foner, the DeWitt Clinton professor of history at Columbia University, in New York.

My own interest in Lincoln dates back many years, when a colleague at Trinity College Dublin recommended reading David Herbert Donald’s biography of him. Since then I have enjoyed following the debates about Lincoln’s career as president, and his style of leadership. For the interested but non-specialist reader Foner’s book is a triumph, and he explains the progression in Lincoln’s views of slavery in an accessible and exciting way.

With Obama set to visit Ireland in a few weeks, it may be time to read a book about the predecessor to whom he is most often compared.

Patrick Prendergast was elected provost of Trinity College Dublin earlier this month and will take up office on August 1st. He is currently professor of bioengineering