Kim Matthew Bauer is historical research specialist at the Henry Horner Lincoln Collection in the Illinois State Historical Library. He is coeditor of the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association and was the presiding officer at the second session of the 1996 Abraham Lincoln Symposium. His scholarly interests include Lincoln's use of humor in the courtroom.

Herman J. Belz is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland at College Park. A past contributor to this journal, he is a specialist in American constitutional, Civil War, and Reconstruction history.

Allen C. Guelzo is Grace Kea Associate Professor of American History at Eastern College, St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He was also a research fellow at the Charles Warren Center for American Studies at Harvard University. He was a commentator for the 1996 Abraham Lincoln Symposium. His interests are American intellectual and theological history.

Robert M. McColley is a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Early Republic, the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, and the Illinois Historical Journal, serving as chair of its editorial board from 1991 to 1993.

Thomas F. Schwartz is the Illinois state historian. His collaboration with Louise and Barry Taper and John Rhodehamel of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, has produced the award-winning exhibition "'The Last Best Hope of Earth': Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America," which appears at the Chicago Historical Society through February 13, 1997.