Author, political insider Blumenthal will headline Abraham Lincoln birthday banquet

Author and political insider Sidney Blumenthal, who has been at work for more than a decade on a five-volume biography on Abraham Lincoln, will headline the Abraham Lincoln Association Birthday Banquet in Springfield on Feb. 19.

The Benjamin P. Thomas Symposium will be held earlier that day. Thomas, a renowned Lincoln biographer, lived in Springfield from 1932 until his death in 1956.

The two events are usually held on Feb. 12, Lincoln’s actual birthday, but have been moved to take advantage of the Presidents’ Day weekend.

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Both events are at the downtown President Abraham Lincoln Hotel.

Blumenthal's five-volume biography, "The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln," is nearing completion with the last two books, covering 1860 to 1865, on their way. Blumenthal's talk in Springfield will address the yet-to-be-published works.

The first three volumes include "A Self-Made Man, 1809-1849" (2016); "Wrestling with His Angel, 1849-1856" (2017) and "All the Powers of Earth, 1856-1860" (2019).

Those books won critical acclaim from historians Harold Holzer, Michael Beschloss and Jon Meacham.

A native of Chicago, Blumenthal was the former assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, and senior adviser to Hillary Clinton. Blumenthal wrote "The Clinton Wars" in 2003.

Blumenthal was a full-time employee of the Clinton Foundation from 2009 to 2013 and then served as a consultant from 2013 to 2015.

Blumenthal has been a national staff reporter for The Washington Post, Washington editor and staff writer for The New Yorker and senior writer for The New Republic and has contributed to numerous other publications.

Blumenthal served as executive producer of the Academy Award- and Emmy-winning documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side." It chronicles the 2002 killing of an Afghan driver, beaten to death by American soldiers while being detained at a U.S. military base.

Among the symposium speakers is author and veteran editor and reporter Edward Achorn, whose upcoming book is "The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention that Changed History."

The symposium also features Michael Green ("Lincoln and Native Americans"); Terry Alford ("Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth") and Jonathan W. White, a leading younger figure in the Lincoln field.

Michael Burlingame, a Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield and the author of "Abraham Lincoln: A Life" (2008), will moderate a roundtable discussion with Blumenthal and the symposium speakers.

The authors will sign their books at the hotel from 3 to 4 p.m.

The symposium talks and roundtable discussion are free and open to the public. The symposium luncheon at the hotel at 12:15 p.m. is $35. The banquet reception is at 6 p.m. and the dinner at 7 p.m. Tickets are $95. Reservations for both can be made at www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org or by calling 217-546-2656.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Author Sidney Blumenthal will keynote the Lincoln Banquet in Springfield