From: New York Times (New York, NY)
Commentary by Douglas L. Wilson, a professor emeritus at Knox College [and co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College]:
“Today we widely understand that Abraham Lincoln’s use of presidential war powers was indispensible to his success. But one of his biggest problems at the time was convincing the Northern public that suspending habeas corpus and other restraints on civil liberties were both temporary and constitutional, and that their enforcement was necessary to win the war…
“Lincoln emphasized the difference between what is allowable in times of rebellion or invasion that would not be allowable to ordinary times… Lincoln’s way of confronting this crisis tells us a great deal about the man, his unorthodox methods and the success of his presidency…” Read more…
From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
Historian Tom Wilson notes a few interesting episodes from Knox College history: “When young Albert Britt entered Knox in the 1890s, there was no examination, no aptitude tests and no psychological examinations. Tuition was $40 and there were no official athletic teams… [20 years later, when Britt was serving as President of Knox, he was] the toastmaster when the inventor of basketball, James Naismith, spoke at the college basketball banquet…
[Wilson also describes how] “the original Knox College charter was very specific in spelling out that any land it sold would be given back to the college if intoxicating liquor was used or sold on the buyer’s property… [In the 1930s] Knox sold property to the federal government for the current Post Office on East Main Street… Knox filed suit against the Federal Government, [apparently] to establish punitive damages if the Federal Government decided to sell liquor on the Post Office site at a future date and even use a room on the premises… The jury [decided] that Knox College might collect as much as a dollar if an infraction occurred…” Read more…
From: WQAD TV-8 (Moline, IL)
Contemporary politicians could learn something by revisiting the style of our 16th president, [according to Lincoln scholars Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis,] retired Knox College professors, authors of four books about Honest Abe, and colleagues at the Lincoln Studies Center. “He learned that you don’t demonize your opponents,” Dr. Wilson said. “They’re people just like you.” Old Main is the last standing building from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates. While Lincoln actually lost that election, it set the stage for his successful presidential bid just two years later. And it forged a Knox-Lincoln connection for the ages… Read more…
From: New York Magazine (New York, NY)
[White House speech writer Jon] Favreau worked on hundreds of speeches, but it was a little-known 2005 graduation address at Knox College, a school of 1,400 students in Galesburg, Illinois, that he has pointed to in interviews as the Ur-text for many of the Obama-Favreau collaborations that followed.
Writer Reid Cherlin (who worked alongside Favreau as a White House spokesman) provides a sampling of lines from the speech [at Knox] that have had second lives: “At the end of the Civil War… big factories that were sprouting up all across America, we had to decide: Do we do nothing and allow captains of industry and robber barons to run roughshod over the economy and workers by competing to see who can pay the lowest wages at the worst working conditions?”… There is no community-service requirement in the real world; no one is forcing you to care… But I hope you don’t walk away from the challenge…” Read more…
From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
In honor of Lincoln’s birthday on Feb. 12, the Knox County Historical Society opened the doors of the old Knoxville courthouse on Sunday and brought in two of the most nationally-renowned Lincoln historians, who both happen to be residents of Knox County, for an informal discussion about the beloved president…
Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis, both retired professors of Knox College, have devoted much, if not all, of their retired lives to studying and preserving Lincoln’s legacy. With more than 100 combined years of experience at Knox College, the duo has established an impressive resume, which includes working with the Library of Congress and Stephen Spielberg on his most recent movie [”Lincoln.”]… Read more…
[Playwright Tony] Kushner [told New Republic magazine] that he has “a short list of 20 or 30 books that were significant to me” in writing the script of the film Lincoln. Included on that list are Herndon’s Informants and Herndon’s Lincoln, both edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, emeritus faculty and co-directors of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. “One of the great joys of working on this,” Kushner said, “is I’ve gotten to read a number of really, really brilliant books… I heartily recommend everything on this list.” 