The 2013 Sulgrave Manor Watson Chair Lecture

Richard Carwardine: "Abraham Lincoln, Irish Americans and the US Civil War"

This year marks the150th anniversary of President Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. While the Emancipation Proclamation did not mark the ultimate fulfilment of the declared American principle that "all men are created equal", it was a major and remarkable step, providing a route to the post-Civil War Constitutional Amendments ending slavery, establishing equal rights under law, and protecting the right to vote.

The Emancipation Proclamation signaled that the war to restore the Union had become a struggle for a more profound freedom. Such significant steps present challenges to society. On 18th March 2013, one day after St Patrick's Day, Professor Richard Carwardine, world-renowned expert on Abraham Lincoln, and President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, examines in particular the trenchant questions asked of the Union loyalism of the Irish American community by his bold and public redefinition of the North's war aims.

The 2013 Sulgrave Manor Watson Chair Lecture is sponsored by Sulgrave Manor, ancestral home of George Washington's family in England, and supported by the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library.

When: Monday 18 March 2013 18.30-20.00

Where: British Library Conference Centre, London

Price: Free but by prior reservation ONLY.