The Hall Institute of Public Policy has been awarded a $5,350 grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, to support “Abraham Lincoln: An American Life Lecture Series.”

• March 22, 2010 – “Lincoln and the Civil War” by Dr. William Gillette at the East Brunswick, NJ Public Library. Dr. Gillette will assess Lincoln’s personality as well as analyze his presidency, with a focus on Lincoln as politician, as statesman, as commander-in-chief, and as a war leader.
• April 6, 2010 – “President-Elect Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter of 1860-61” by Harold Holzer at the Brookdale Community College, Lincroft, NJ. This lecture presents the greatest crisis America faced – the confrontation between North and South following Lincoln’s election in 1860. Holzer will analyze the story of the secession, its threat to American democracy and Lincoln’s insistence on resisting compromise that would have extended slavery.
• April 15, 2010 – “The Lincolns: Portrait of Marriage” by Daniel Mark Epstein at Camden County College, Blackwood, NJ. Mr. Epstein will discuss the complex Lincoln marriage and analyze the impact of this relationship on Lincoln and his presidency.
• April 22, 2010 – “Abraham Lincoln: New Findings, Fresh Perspectives” by Michael Burlingame at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Pomona, NJ. Professor Burlingame will discuss new data he unearthed that affects our understanding of Lincoln’s private and public life both during his presidency and his pre-presidential years.

Hall Institute Executive Director Michael P. Riccards, a presidential scholar, is chairman of New Jersey's Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. Riccards also serves as the state's representative on the national Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

Riccards is the author or editor of 14 books, including a two-volume history of the American presidency, The Ferocious Engine of Democracy.  He also has written 12 plays, including two on Abraham Lincoln, and authored the definitive study of Lincoln and the creation of the state of West Virginia in Presidential Studies Quarterly, as well as a popular two-part series in The Washington Times comparing Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as commanders-in-chief.