Bonds of Affection: Civic Charity and the Making of America-Winthrop, Jefferson, and Lincoln

doi:10.1017/S0009640708001522 Bonds of Affection: Civic Charity ana the Making of America-Winthrop, Jefferson, and Lincoln. By Matthew S. Holland. Religion and Politics Scries. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2007. xii + 323 pp. $26.95 paper.

Bonds of Affection examines several of the mountaintops of American thought-Winthrop's "Model of Christian Charity," Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence and his First Inaugural, and Lincoln's second Inaugural. Appendices (261-290) reprint these documents. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his commentary on the Puritans, is almost as much a presence as the three luminaries of the title. The book is a meditation on the importance of charity and on some of its limits in modem society. Winthrop, secure in his faith, noted the importance of charity in society, and Jefferson and Lincoln, far less orthodox in their religion, came late in their...