Biografia Nato a Sterling, nello stato statunitense dell'Illinois, da Joseph Henry Fehrenbacher e Mary Barton, studiò al Cornell College e poi all'università di Chicago.
Sposò Virginia Ellen Swaney, ed ebbe tre figli, Rush, Susan e David. Nel 1979 venne premiato con il premio Pulitzer per la storia per Dred Scott Decision. Fu docente di storia alla Stanford University..
Opere Chicago Giant: A Biography of "Long John" Wentworth 1957 Prelude To Greatness: Lincoln In The 1850s, 1962 A Basic History of California, 1964 Abraham Lincoln: A Documentary Portrait Through His Speeches and Writings, 1964 California: An Illustrated History, 1968 Changing Image of Lincoln in American Historiographt, 1968 Era of Expansion 1800-1848, 1969 The Leadership of Abraham Lincoln, 1970 Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War, 1840-1861, 1970 Leadership of Abraham Lincoln, 1970 The Impending Crisis, 1976 Tradition, Conflict and Modernization, 1978 The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, 1978 The Minor Affair: An Adventure in Forgery and Detection, 1979 The South and Three Sectional Crises, 1980 Slavery, Law, and Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective, 1981 Lincoln in Text and Context: Collected Essays, 1987 Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, 1989 Lincoln: Speeches and Writings: Volume 2: 1859-1865, 1989 Constitutions and Constitutionalism in the Slaveholding South, 1989 Sectional Crisis and Southern Constitutionalism, 1995 Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln (completato con Virginia), 1996 The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States government's Relations to Slavery (poi completato da Ward M. McAfee), 2001
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Categoria:Vincitori del Premio Pulitzer