Don E. Fehrenbacher is William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies Emeritus at Stanford University. He has served as Harmsworth Professor at Oxford University and as Harrison Professor at the College of William and Mary. He has been an NEH fellow, a Guggenheim fellow (twice), and in 1985–86 the Huntington-Seaver Fellow at the Huntington Library. His book, The Dred Scott Decision, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979. A collection of his Lincoln essays, Lincoln in Text and Context, was published in 1987.

Thomas F. Schwartz is curator of the Lincoln Collection for the Illinois State Historical Library and has spoken and written widely on the life of Abraham Lincoln. He is a native of Illinois and is working on his dissertation on Jacksonian diplomacy. His recent articles include: "Lincoln, Fillmore and Form Letters," in the Journal of the State Historical Society and "Lincoln Handbill of 1837: A Rare Document's History," in the Journal of Illinois History.

Frank J. Williams is the president of the Abraham Lincoln Association. For years, he has also served as president of the Lincoln Group of Boston. Mr. Williams lectures widely, most recently at the Lincoln Family symposium at Hildene, Vermont. As principal advisor for the Lincoln and the American Political Tradition symposium at Brown University, he won a special Barondess Award. Mr. Williams has one of the largest privately held Lincoln libraries in the country.