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A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849
The first in a sweeping, multi-volume history of Abraham Lincoln—from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, death, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War plan of reconciliation—“engaging and informative and…thought-provoking” (The Christian Science Monitor).
From his youth as a voracious newspaper reader, Abraham Lincoln became a free thinker, reading Tom Paine, as well as Shakespeare and the Bible. In the “fascinating” (Booklist, starred review) A Self-Made Man, Sidney Blumenthal reveals how Lincoln’s antislavery thinking began in his childhood in backwoods Kentucky and Indiana. Intensely ambitious, he held political aspirations from his earliest years. Yet he was a socially awkward suitor who had a nervous breakdown over his inability to deal with the opposite sex. His marriage to the upper class Mary Todd was crucial to his social aspirations and his political career. “The Lincoln of Blumenthal’s pen is…a brave progressive facing racist assaults on his religion, ethnicity, and very legitimacy that echo the anti-Obama birther movement….Blumenthal takes the wily pol of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and goes deeper, finding a Vulcan logic and House of Cards ruthlessness” (The Washingtonian).
Based on prodigious research of Lincoln’s record, and of the period and its main players, Blumenthal’s robust biography reflects both Lincoln’s time and the struggle that consumes our own political debate. This first volume traces Lincoln from his birth in 1809 through his education in the political arts, rise to the Congress, and fall into the wilderness from which he emerged as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln. “Splendid…no one can come away from reading A Self-Made Man…without eagerly anticipating the ensuing volumes.” (Washington Monthly).
From his youth as a voracious newspaper reader, Abraham Lincoln became a free thinker, reading Tom Paine, as well as Shakespeare and the Bible. In the “fascinating” (Booklist, starred review) A Self-Made Man, Sidney Blumenthal reveals how Lincoln’s antislavery thinking began in his childhood in backwoods Kentucky and Indiana. Intensely ambitious, he held political aspirations from his earliest years. Yet he was a socially awkward suitor who had a nervous breakdown over his inability to deal with the opposite sex. His marriage to the upper class Mary Todd was crucial to his social aspirations and his political career. “The Lincoln of Blumenthal’s pen is…a brave progressive facing racist assaults on his religion, ethnicity, and very legitimacy that echo the anti-Obama birther movement….Blumenthal takes the wily pol of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and goes deeper, finding a Vulcan logic and House of Cards ruthlessness” (The Washingtonian).
Based on prodigious research of Lincoln’s record, and of the period and its main players, Blumenthal’s robust biography reflects both Lincoln’s time and the struggle that consumes our own political debate. This first volume traces Lincoln from his birth in 1809 through his education in the political arts, rise to the Congress, and fall into the wilderness from which he emerged as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln. “Splendid…no one can come away from reading A Self-Made Man…without eagerly anticipating the ensuing volumes.” (Washington Monthly).
576 pages, Paperback
First published May 10, 2016
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March 28, 2024
1809-1849 The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln
You may struggle to understand the presidential years of Abraham Lincoln unless you gain a better understanding of the man. This book by Sidney Blumenthal is a good choice to fill in the blanks.
The man who became President Lincoln had a very difficult and traumatic childhood that included the early death of a dearly loved mother and a father who was intent on getting every bit of labor from his child. Like most of us at GR, Lincoln was a voracious reader who found both his education and some solace in what was available to him. Blumenthal does a fine job describing how Lincoln’s view of the world expands with his early experiences. If I knew, I had forgotten that his experience on the big (Mississippi) and small (Sangamon) rivers both developed his body and his mind and eventually his creativity resulted in a successful application for a patent (the only President ever to hold a patent) for aiding the movement of boat through rivers with natural blockages.
Blumenthal traces his political development that initially took place in some very rough prairie towns. He is strongest in piecing together the elements of Lincoln’s character and how they were influence. He gives a good account of the small villages on Illinois’ prairie and rivers that were Lincoln’s workspace.
In this period the politics were complex and divisive and it wasn’t hard to get a bit bewildered by it all.
Blumenthal is both a good historian and a good storyteller.
4.5
You may struggle to understand the presidential years of Abraham Lincoln unless you gain a better understanding of the man. This book by Sidney Blumenthal is a good choice to fill in the blanks.
The man who became President Lincoln had a very difficult and traumatic childhood that included the early death of a dearly loved mother and a father who was intent on getting every bit of labor from his child. Like most of us at GR, Lincoln was a voracious reader who found both his education and some solace in what was available to him. Blumenthal does a fine job describing how Lincoln’s view of the world expands with his early experiences. If I knew, I had forgotten that his experience on the big (Mississippi) and small (Sangamon) rivers both developed his body and his mind and eventually his creativity resulted in a successful application for a patent (the only President ever to hold a patent) for aiding the movement of boat through rivers with natural blockages.
Blumenthal traces his political development that initially took place in some very rough prairie towns. He is strongest in piecing together the elements of Lincoln’s character and how they were influence. He gives a good account of the small villages on Illinois’ prairie and rivers that were Lincoln’s workspace.
In this period the politics were complex and divisive and it wasn’t hard to get a bit bewildered by it all.
Blumenthal is both a good historian and a good storyteller.
4.5
September 15, 2022
I must confess that I'm kind of disappointed. I’ve been looking forward to reading this series for a long time, and had saved it for late in the year in the hopes it would serve as something of a crescendo in my Year of Reading Nothing But Lincoln Books. But I felt like I didn’t learn anything new or find anything particularly insightful about Lincoln here. That’s not because I’d previously read so much about him, but because he’s little more than a supporting player - if not an afterthought - in the first volume of this series devoted to his life and political career.
One might expect a multivolume biography to unfold at a somewhat leisurely pace, but the first chapter here dives right into the deep end, with a rapidfire summary of Lincoln’s entire political life, influences and development, as Blumenthal lays out his thesis that Lincoln was not somehow above politics, but reveled in them.
The thesis is fair, if not necessarily unique. And the chapters that follow are initially quite good. Blumenthal ably examines Lincoln’s strained relationship with his father Thomas, he draws special attention to the early antislavery sentiment among church leaders and frontier settlers that helped influence Lincoln from a young age, and he traces Lincoln’s burgeoning interest in politics, weaving in discussions of national political issues and debates of the times.
These chapters on Lincoln’s early life are as thorough as Michael Burlingame’s two-volume Lincoln biography, but even more readable - while Burlingame makes an assertion and uses copious quotes from Lincoln’s contemporaries to support his claim, Blumenthal uses first-person quotes frequently but judiciously, not to prove a point but to enrich and enliven his story.
But by chapter 4, the book suddenly started to go off the rails for me. While earlier chapters told of Lincoln’s political development in the context of the political times, these later chapters begin to lose sight of Lincoln altogether. Background and context are necessary, and welcome, but the book seems to start collapsing under its own weight with endless chapter-length digressions that discuss the times while adding little to our understanding of Lincoln himself.
To many readers, this broader focus on "the times" was the book's main strength. To me, though, it was just too much. Yes, perhaps it is necessary to provide a comprehensive discussion of the nullification crisis under Andrew Jackson, the rise of the abolition movement, and the factors leading up to the Mexican-American War in order to properly set the scene for Lincoln’s political awakening. But do we need a thorough telling of the “corrupt bargain” of 1824? A full recounting of the Eaton Affair? A complete history of the origins of Mormonism? Much of it is readable and interesting, but every time Blumenthal explores one of these rabbit holes, Lincoln himself fades further into the background. And the connection, if any, to his own story is rarely made clear.
These sidebar stories eventually become somewhat more relevant when they pertain to people who clearly had more of a connection to, and influence on, Lincoln, such as Henry Clay, Salmon Chase and William Seward. And you can begin to see the spark that ultimately ignited Lincoln’s political rise, as Blumenthal tells of others who were further along in their antislavery sentiment than Lincoln initially was, and how his convictions were influenced by them.
But by then, the book had lost its momentum for me, as instead of telling a background story or a mini-biography of an influential individual, then circling back to tie it in with Lincoln, Blumenthal seems more interested in telling every last detail of these sidebar stories than he is in discussing Lincoln himself. Instead of an "Abraham Lincoln and His Times" approach, it's more "The Times in Which Abraham Lincoln Lived." Clearly, this was Blumenthal's purpose, so maybe it's on me for not discerning precisely why it was his purpose, aside from an apparent desire to preface a narrower focus in later volumes, with a grand, sweeping general history of politics in the early-to-mid-1800’s.
In some cases, however, it’s not even an accurate history of politics in the early-to-mid-1800’s. In telling the story of William Henry Harrison’s brief presidency that came to an untimely end, Blumenthal reaches the bizarre conclusion that “it seems apparent that Harrison drank himself to death," which is completely unsupported by anything I’ve ever read. Later, he clarifies that Harrison died from "pneumonia caught at his inauguration," which is at least closer to the truth, if still not necessarily correct.
Blumenthal also unquestioningly tells the old saw about James Polk’s “four great measures” he laid out as goals for his presidency - and then gets them wrong, by including “annexing Texas” among them, which it was not (though it’s essentially moot, since Blumenthal ought to have recognized the “four great measures” as an apocryphal story in the first place.)
And, in a story that actually pertains to Lincoln for a change, Blumenthal relies on a discredited biography to claim that Lincoln not only met Henry Clay, but dined with him at his Ashland estate, when most serious biographers discount this story and don’t believe that Lincoln and Clay ever met at all.
Volume one has sort of turned me off to wanting to continue on to read volume two, though I suspect - and certainly hope - that Lincoln himself will eventually start taking center stage. By the end of this volume, Lincoln is a nascent political creature who has not yet figured out how to do politics right. It's all setup, with the payoff presumably to come.
But this series’ originally-projected three volumes might never have ballooned to a now-planned five volumes, had Blumenthal managed to rein in many of the digressions that purport to serve as background and context, but really just overwhelm the story of Lincoln and his own political development. That story has been better told elsewhere - and I can only hope it will be better told as this series goes on.
One might expect a multivolume biography to unfold at a somewhat leisurely pace, but the first chapter here dives right into the deep end, with a rapidfire summary of Lincoln’s entire political life, influences and development, as Blumenthal lays out his thesis that Lincoln was not somehow above politics, but reveled in them.
The thesis is fair, if not necessarily unique. And the chapters that follow are initially quite good. Blumenthal ably examines Lincoln’s strained relationship with his father Thomas, he draws special attention to the early antislavery sentiment among church leaders and frontier settlers that helped influence Lincoln from a young age, and he traces Lincoln’s burgeoning interest in politics, weaving in discussions of national political issues and debates of the times.
These chapters on Lincoln’s early life are as thorough as Michael Burlingame’s two-volume Lincoln biography, but even more readable - while Burlingame makes an assertion and uses copious quotes from Lincoln’s contemporaries to support his claim, Blumenthal uses first-person quotes frequently but judiciously, not to prove a point but to enrich and enliven his story.
But by chapter 4, the book suddenly started to go off the rails for me. While earlier chapters told of Lincoln’s political development in the context of the political times, these later chapters begin to lose sight of Lincoln altogether. Background and context are necessary, and welcome, but the book seems to start collapsing under its own weight with endless chapter-length digressions that discuss the times while adding little to our understanding of Lincoln himself.
To many readers, this broader focus on "the times" was the book's main strength. To me, though, it was just too much. Yes, perhaps it is necessary to provide a comprehensive discussion of the nullification crisis under Andrew Jackson, the rise of the abolition movement, and the factors leading up to the Mexican-American War in order to properly set the scene for Lincoln’s political awakening. But do we need a thorough telling of the “corrupt bargain” of 1824? A full recounting of the Eaton Affair? A complete history of the origins of Mormonism? Much of it is readable and interesting, but every time Blumenthal explores one of these rabbit holes, Lincoln himself fades further into the background. And the connection, if any, to his own story is rarely made clear.
These sidebar stories eventually become somewhat more relevant when they pertain to people who clearly had more of a connection to, and influence on, Lincoln, such as Henry Clay, Salmon Chase and William Seward. And you can begin to see the spark that ultimately ignited Lincoln’s political rise, as Blumenthal tells of others who were further along in their antislavery sentiment than Lincoln initially was, and how his convictions were influenced by them.
But by then, the book had lost its momentum for me, as instead of telling a background story or a mini-biography of an influential individual, then circling back to tie it in with Lincoln, Blumenthal seems more interested in telling every last detail of these sidebar stories than he is in discussing Lincoln himself. Instead of an "Abraham Lincoln and His Times" approach, it's more "The Times in Which Abraham Lincoln Lived." Clearly, this was Blumenthal's purpose, so maybe it's on me for not discerning precisely why it was his purpose, aside from an apparent desire to preface a narrower focus in later volumes, with a grand, sweeping general history of politics in the early-to-mid-1800’s.
In some cases, however, it’s not even an accurate history of politics in the early-to-mid-1800’s. In telling the story of William Henry Harrison’s brief presidency that came to an untimely end, Blumenthal reaches the bizarre conclusion that “it seems apparent that Harrison drank himself to death," which is completely unsupported by anything I’ve ever read. Later, he clarifies that Harrison died from "pneumonia caught at his inauguration," which is at least closer to the truth, if still not necessarily correct.
Blumenthal also unquestioningly tells the old saw about James Polk’s “four great measures” he laid out as goals for his presidency - and then gets them wrong, by including “annexing Texas” among them, which it was not (though it’s essentially moot, since Blumenthal ought to have recognized the “four great measures” as an apocryphal story in the first place.)
And, in a story that actually pertains to Lincoln for a change, Blumenthal relies on a discredited biography to claim that Lincoln not only met Henry Clay, but dined with him at his Ashland estate, when most serious biographers discount this story and don’t believe that Lincoln and Clay ever met at all.
Volume one has sort of turned me off to wanting to continue on to read volume two, though I suspect - and certainly hope - that Lincoln himself will eventually start taking center stage. By the end of this volume, Lincoln is a nascent political creature who has not yet figured out how to do politics right. It's all setup, with the payoff presumably to come.
But this series’ originally-projected three volumes might never have ballooned to a now-planned five volumes, had Blumenthal managed to rein in many of the digressions that purport to serve as background and context, but really just overwhelm the story of Lincoln and his own political development. That story has been better told elsewhere - and I can only hope it will be better told as this series goes on.
June 1, 2016
I have to admit that I did not come into reading this book easily. Sidney Blumenthal is not a current American high on my list, but due to an interview with him on the John Batchelor Show (http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/john-...) I decided this was worth my time. I'm glad that I read it. Not to mention finding it at Eastgate Library just before leaving on our vacation.
Abraham Lincoln is an enigma in many ways. Despite having more bios written about him than perhaps any person ever I don't think that anyone has really captured him. Sure I enjoyed the Spielberg 'Lincoln,' but I don't doubt for a moment that it was written and filmed in a way to tug at my admiration. Sure, fine.
Blumenthal, in this book though, has really given us a history of the times that created Lincoln, I'm not sure where he will go in the next two books in this planned trilogy, but I really did pick up a lot of new information and I don't think I ever made more notes for research from any book, so kudos for that.
The takeaways, and I hope I'm not doing too much spoilers is John C. Calhoun was the devil incarnate. I gather that while I was at college, but this and my research has cemented that idea. I'm having a difficult time resisting innovating Godwin's Law, but, no I'll stop there.
John Quincy Adams shines here and should, I knew that, but again amazed by his leadership in many ways was wasted by the voters of the time.
Henry Clay, I had arrived at this book with some good thoughts. I see now that he had some clay feet that I had not encountered before. Again, with research, so not just trusting Blumenthal.
Daniel Webster, again some flaws, but comes off somewhat reasonably well despite his pursuit of the presidency. Although Calhoun, Clay, and Webster certainly aimed high and missed. To reiterate, I am glad that Calhoun failed because if he ever won our nation would have suffered WWO as the rest of the world would have had to put down that despot.
Back to A. Lincoln, the opening of the book describes a speech in 1856 where he stated 'I was a slave.' This was based upon his youth and being leased by his father to chop wood, farm, build, or serve as needed to anyone in order to pay his way. Until the age of 21 Lincoln was basically an indentured servant. The New Harmony, Indiana utopian community began around his 18th birthday, but he could not afford the cost much less leave his father. His loss was perhaps our gain as Lincoln had to struggle in his education from thereon. This belief seems to lead his life's pursuit of place. It was very important to Lincoln as Blumenthal states to be remembered.
I'll stop here, but I can't urge you enough to read this book and get a better perspective regarding Lincoln and his times. I know slavery and it's struggle was paramount in this age, but this book by far was better at conveying that fight than any general history books I read and was taught during high school and college and I had some great teachers, but they focused on other aspects. I'll be back to this time soon. The Mexican War appears to have been the Iraq War of their time.
Oh, one last thing, as much as I admire Lincoln even more after this book I have to confess that I would probably have been a Copperhead at the time and not appreciative of his leadership. I'm not sure that I would have, from afar, realized his end game. There are aspects of his administration that I would have complained about much like I complain today. So perhaps that shows how much I really know.
Abraham Lincoln is an enigma in many ways. Despite having more bios written about him than perhaps any person ever I don't think that anyone has really captured him. Sure I enjoyed the Spielberg 'Lincoln,' but I don't doubt for a moment that it was written and filmed in a way to tug at my admiration. Sure, fine.
Blumenthal, in this book though, has really given us a history of the times that created Lincoln, I'm not sure where he will go in the next two books in this planned trilogy, but I really did pick up a lot of new information and I don't think I ever made more notes for research from any book, so kudos for that.
The takeaways, and I hope I'm not doing too much spoilers is John C. Calhoun was the devil incarnate. I gather that while I was at college, but this and my research has cemented that idea. I'm having a difficult time resisting innovating Godwin's Law, but, no I'll stop there.
John Quincy Adams shines here and should, I knew that, but again amazed by his leadership in many ways was wasted by the voters of the time.
Henry Clay, I had arrived at this book with some good thoughts. I see now that he had some clay feet that I had not encountered before. Again, with research, so not just trusting Blumenthal.
Daniel Webster, again some flaws, but comes off somewhat reasonably well despite his pursuit of the presidency. Although Calhoun, Clay, and Webster certainly aimed high and missed. To reiterate, I am glad that Calhoun failed because if he ever won our nation would have suffered WWO as the rest of the world would have had to put down that despot.
Back to A. Lincoln, the opening of the book describes a speech in 1856 where he stated 'I was a slave.' This was based upon his youth and being leased by his father to chop wood, farm, build, or serve as needed to anyone in order to pay his way. Until the age of 21 Lincoln was basically an indentured servant. The New Harmony, Indiana utopian community began around his 18th birthday, but he could not afford the cost much less leave his father. His loss was perhaps our gain as Lincoln had to struggle in his education from thereon. This belief seems to lead his life's pursuit of place. It was very important to Lincoln as Blumenthal states to be remembered.
I'll stop here, but I can't urge you enough to read this book and get a better perspective regarding Lincoln and his times. I know slavery and it's struggle was paramount in this age, but this book by far was better at conveying that fight than any general history books I read and was taught during high school and college and I had some great teachers, but they focused on other aspects. I'll be back to this time soon. The Mexican War appears to have been the Iraq War of their time.
Oh, one last thing, as much as I admire Lincoln even more after this book I have to confess that I would probably have been a Copperhead at the time and not appreciative of his leadership. I'm not sure that I would have, from afar, realized his end game. There are aspects of his administration that I would have complained about much like I complain today. So perhaps that shows how much I really know.
June 24, 2017
This is a terrific biography of Abraham Lincoln (well, the first of three volumes). Some time ago, I read another fine biography of Lincoln, this one penned by David Herbert Donald. Several themes emerge in this portion of Lincoln's life (1809-1849): a more full blown discussion of his relationship with his father; his developing views on slavery, his struggle to make something of himself, his early interactions with Stephen Douglas, his marriage to Mary Todd, and so on.
His father, Thomas, lived a hardscrabble life. Living in the slave state of Kentucky, he was one of the white residents who had to work hard for very little money. He came to despise slavery and this led him to move to Indiana. He was hard on his son, and later, Lincoln made comments suggesting that his life was so hard that he felt something like a slave. His enmity toward the "peculiar institution" began early in life.
With a move to Illinois, Lincoln settled in a new community, New Salem, and later moved to Springfield. He began to try to make something of himself and began to become a visible part of the community. He edged into politics and became a lawyer. In the 1830s, he had his first encounters with Douglas, with whom he was fated to joust politically for many years. While Douglas' political star rose, Lincoln's was sporadic, some time in the state legislature and one term in Congress. He became a figure among Whigs, often working behind the scenes, as he had seldom been in office.
Of course, his on and off courtship of Mary Todd is rightly discussed at length. She was keenly interested in politics and she and Lincoln were partners in a number of respects. She was very ambitious for his success. She came from a leading family in Kentucky, so, as they say, Lincoln had married "above himself."
The book provides great detail on this part of Lincoln's life. The oft-told tale of his boat trip to New Orleans and his view of a slave society and treatment of Africans had a great impact on him.
One characteristic of this (and the next) volume is that at times the book leaves the narrative of Abraham Lincoln and spends time on the context in which Lincoln was growing up. The politics of the day, the leading political figures, the conflicts. . . . At times, I would think--'Where is Lincoln?" But, in the end, this embedded his life story within a larger perspective and enlightens the reading.
All in all, a very fine book on Abraham Lincoln. One of the best that I have read.
His father, Thomas, lived a hardscrabble life. Living in the slave state of Kentucky, he was one of the white residents who had to work hard for very little money. He came to despise slavery and this led him to move to Indiana. He was hard on his son, and later, Lincoln made comments suggesting that his life was so hard that he felt something like a slave. His enmity toward the "peculiar institution" began early in life.
With a move to Illinois, Lincoln settled in a new community, New Salem, and later moved to Springfield. He began to try to make something of himself and began to become a visible part of the community. He edged into politics and became a lawyer. In the 1830s, he had his first encounters with Douglas, with whom he was fated to joust politically for many years. While Douglas' political star rose, Lincoln's was sporadic, some time in the state legislature and one term in Congress. He became a figure among Whigs, often working behind the scenes, as he had seldom been in office.
Of course, his on and off courtship of Mary Todd is rightly discussed at length. She was keenly interested in politics and she and Lincoln were partners in a number of respects. She was very ambitious for his success. She came from a leading family in Kentucky, so, as they say, Lincoln had married "above himself."
The book provides great detail on this part of Lincoln's life. The oft-told tale of his boat trip to New Orleans and his view of a slave society and treatment of Africans had a great impact on him.
One characteristic of this (and the next) volume is that at times the book leaves the narrative of Abraham Lincoln and spends time on the context in which Lincoln was growing up. The politics of the day, the leading political figures, the conflicts. . . . At times, I would think--'Where is Lincoln?" But, in the end, this embedded his life story within a larger perspective and enlightens the reading.
All in all, a very fine book on Abraham Lincoln. One of the best that I have read.
July 20, 2021
Abraham Lincoln is one of the most-written-about men in history, possibly the most-written-about man. Given that, one has to almost keep from rolling one's eyes when spotting a new Lincoln biography at the bookstore. And it prompts the question: What new can possibly be said about Lincoln at this point in time that has not been said before? Fortunately, Sidney Blumenthal provides an excellent answer to that question in his first volume covering Lincoln.
One of the reasons that Blumenthal's book is so good is because he does not just focus on Lincoln. There are either chapters or long chunks of chapters on crucial historical figures of that time period: John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Stephen A. Douglas, among others. And concurrently, Blumenthal examines in-depth many issues that caused dissension during that time: the westward move and controversy surrounding the Mormons, the War with Mexico (politically speaking), the abolitionist movement, the beginnings of the end of the Whig Party, and the internal makeup of the citizenry of Illinois and how the power base radically changed with the explosion in Chicago's population in mid-century. All of these things greatly affected Lincoln's world and influenced how he thought, what he wrote, and what he did. Blumenthal's treatment of someone like Calhoun is reminiscent of Robert Caro writing about people crucial in the life of Lyndon Johnson, with enough time devoted to the person to almost pass as a mini-biography.
Blumenthal successfully shows how Lincoln's difficult childhood (which sadly was not uncommon in those days) really put him at a distinct disadvantage when it came to Lincoln trying to improve himself and move up in the world. As Lincoln himself said, he was a "nobody" and had no influence over anyone, being seen more as a congenial jokester than any kind of influential citizen. Also, Lincoln was prone to periods of melancholy, although Blumenthal believes that previous Lincoln biographers have somewhat over-stated that. He makes a convincing case for it, going back through bits of Lincoln's own writings that in the past have been used to put forward the thesis that he was suicidal at one point in 1841. I think that Blumenthal might underplay that just a tad, but I do take his point that it probably has been over-emphasized in the past few decades.
Lincoln's slow rise to political relevance is chronicled, constantly mixed in with the historical vignettes mentioned earlier. Blumenthal's methods here produce the needed context to try to understand Lincoln's world, see what the issues were at the time, not just how they seem in retrospect. And, he avoids the trap that so many biographers fall into: focusing so closely on the minutiae of the subject themselves that the reader misses the necessary context to recognize how the time and place influenced the person and vice versa. Here, you get a good idea of how a raw Illinois was: Southern in sentiment despite being a Northern state, holding slavery to be illegal but instituting a restrictive "Black Code" that wasn't too much better, and the shifting dynamics of the political power base from the southern portion of the state, to the center (Springfield), and then shifting rapidly north (Chicago). From page 385: "Illinois was becoming more Northern - the foundation for a Republican Party that did not yet exist and an Abraham Lincoln who has not yet emerged."
Blumenthal's prose is eminently readable and keeps the reader interested. He does a good job of balancing the personal side of Lincoln with his professional and political sides. He is neither overly critical nor fawning of Lincoln. He shows Lincoln's naivete, especially in trying to secure patronage jobs for himself and others immediately after his lone term as a Congressman concludes. And he also shows that, contrary to what others have written, Lincoln was anti-slavery from when he was a young man. He was not a full-blown ardent abolitionist in the mold of a Joshua Giddings, recognizing that adopting that stance would both go nowhere and get him nowhere. But he made it pretty clear that he was against slavery and, at best, wanted it left confined to the Southern states.
This volume concludes with Lincoln's departure from Washington in 1849 after his almost completely unsuccessful patronage push. Lincoln is now firmly established as a respected lawyer in Springfield and around central IL, and is known widely amongst Whig Party circles in IL, but almost completely unknown outside the state, despite having met several famous people of that time (his future Secretary of State William Seward being one of them). This is one of the best books that I have read about Lincoln, and I look forward to the next volume. If I have any criticism, it is a minor one: Blumenthal writes his chapters in one big solid block, with no breaks. I prefer segments within chapters so I can read a few pages and have a natural break to stop on if I do not have a lot of time between doing other things. But that's a minor quibble, and does not detract from this excellent work.
Grade: A
One of the reasons that Blumenthal's book is so good is because he does not just focus on Lincoln. There are either chapters or long chunks of chapters on crucial historical figures of that time period: John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Stephen A. Douglas, among others. And concurrently, Blumenthal examines in-depth many issues that caused dissension during that time: the westward move and controversy surrounding the Mormons, the War with Mexico (politically speaking), the abolitionist movement, the beginnings of the end of the Whig Party, and the internal makeup of the citizenry of Illinois and how the power base radically changed with the explosion in Chicago's population in mid-century. All of these things greatly affected Lincoln's world and influenced how he thought, what he wrote, and what he did. Blumenthal's treatment of someone like Calhoun is reminiscent of Robert Caro writing about people crucial in the life of Lyndon Johnson, with enough time devoted to the person to almost pass as a mini-biography.
Blumenthal successfully shows how Lincoln's difficult childhood (which sadly was not uncommon in those days) really put him at a distinct disadvantage when it came to Lincoln trying to improve himself and move up in the world. As Lincoln himself said, he was a "nobody" and had no influence over anyone, being seen more as a congenial jokester than any kind of influential citizen. Also, Lincoln was prone to periods of melancholy, although Blumenthal believes that previous Lincoln biographers have somewhat over-stated that. He makes a convincing case for it, going back through bits of Lincoln's own writings that in the past have been used to put forward the thesis that he was suicidal at one point in 1841. I think that Blumenthal might underplay that just a tad, but I do take his point that it probably has been over-emphasized in the past few decades.
Lincoln's slow rise to political relevance is chronicled, constantly mixed in with the historical vignettes mentioned earlier. Blumenthal's methods here produce the needed context to try to understand Lincoln's world, see what the issues were at the time, not just how they seem in retrospect. And, he avoids the trap that so many biographers fall into: focusing so closely on the minutiae of the subject themselves that the reader misses the necessary context to recognize how the time and place influenced the person and vice versa. Here, you get a good idea of how a raw Illinois was: Southern in sentiment despite being a Northern state, holding slavery to be illegal but instituting a restrictive "Black Code" that wasn't too much better, and the shifting dynamics of the political power base from the southern portion of the state, to the center (Springfield), and then shifting rapidly north (Chicago). From page 385: "Illinois was becoming more Northern - the foundation for a Republican Party that did not yet exist and an Abraham Lincoln who has not yet emerged."
Blumenthal's prose is eminently readable and keeps the reader interested. He does a good job of balancing the personal side of Lincoln with his professional and political sides. He is neither overly critical nor fawning of Lincoln. He shows Lincoln's naivete, especially in trying to secure patronage jobs for himself and others immediately after his lone term as a Congressman concludes. And he also shows that, contrary to what others have written, Lincoln was anti-slavery from when he was a young man. He was not a full-blown ardent abolitionist in the mold of a Joshua Giddings, recognizing that adopting that stance would both go nowhere and get him nowhere. But he made it pretty clear that he was against slavery and, at best, wanted it left confined to the Southern states.
This volume concludes with Lincoln's departure from Washington in 1849 after his almost completely unsuccessful patronage push. Lincoln is now firmly established as a respected lawyer in Springfield and around central IL, and is known widely amongst Whig Party circles in IL, but almost completely unknown outside the state, despite having met several famous people of that time (his future Secretary of State William Seward being one of them). This is one of the best books that I have read about Lincoln, and I look forward to the next volume. If I have any criticism, it is a minor one: Blumenthal writes his chapters in one big solid block, with no breaks. I prefer segments within chapters so I can read a few pages and have a natural break to stop on if I do not have a lot of time between doing other things. But that's a minor quibble, and does not detract from this excellent work.
Grade: A
July 31, 2016
The title of this book is misleading. Rather than a description of how Lincoln refashioned himself from mudsill to up-and-coming politician, it frames Lincoln’s rise in the politics of Jacksonian and post-Jacksonian America.
Blumenthal makes some interesting points. For example, when the story of Lincoln’s prairie years is told, authors usually ignore the story of the Mormons at Nauvoo, which Blumenthal discusses in relation to Illinois politics and politicians, in particular, Lincoln’s great rival, Stephen Douglas. I did find that the characterization of Joseph Smith was one-sided
The interpretation of Lincoln’s Lyceum address was particularly interesting. Blumenthal put the speech in the context of the Lovejoy lynching, and the actions of politicians in complicity with mob violence. Blumenthal suggests Stephen Douglas as the would-be tyrant or demagogue of the address.
A frequent criticism of Lincoln’s war years was the time taken up by patronage seekers. Blumenthal provides an explanation of Lincoln’s tight control of patronage as President as influenced by his difficulties with patronage at the beginning of Taylor’s administration.
To summarize, there is nothing earth-shattering here, but a readable account of Lincoln’s early political career that lights a few dim corners.
Blumenthal makes some interesting points. For example, when the story of Lincoln’s prairie years is told, authors usually ignore the story of the Mormons at Nauvoo, which Blumenthal discusses in relation to Illinois politics and politicians, in particular, Lincoln’s great rival, Stephen Douglas. I did find that the characterization of Joseph Smith was one-sided
The interpretation of Lincoln’s Lyceum address was particularly interesting. Blumenthal put the speech in the context of the Lovejoy lynching, and the actions of politicians in complicity with mob violence. Blumenthal suggests Stephen Douglas as the would-be tyrant or demagogue of the address.
A frequent criticism of Lincoln’s war years was the time taken up by patronage seekers. Blumenthal provides an explanation of Lincoln’s tight control of patronage as President as influenced by his difficulties with patronage at the beginning of Taylor’s administration.
To summarize, there is nothing earth-shattering here, but a readable account of Lincoln’s early political career that lights a few dim corners.
January 17, 2021
One criticism of much of the vast literature devoted to Abraham Lincoln is that it relies exclusively on what he said and did, and that there is little effort made to place him in the context of the times that he lived. Notably, historian Eric Foner contextualized Lincoln's views on slavery and race in "The Fiery Trial" and was rewarded with the Pulitzer Prize. In this first volume of a planned trilogy, Sidney Blumenthal attempts to do the same with Lincoln's political thought and beliefs. Blumenthal explores the forces, events and ideas that influenced the young Lincoln. In turn, Henry Clay, Thomas Paine, the itinerant ministers of frontier Indiana and Illinois, John Calhoun, J.Q. Adams, newspaperman and abolitionist Owen Lovejoy, future Cabinet ministers Salmon Chase and William Seward, and many others, all get their due. As some reviewers have noted, the author's descriptions of Joseph Smith are harsh, but it is interesting to read of the political competition between the Illinois Whigs and Democrats, striving to win the endorsement of the nascent Mormons in 1841. As a Whig elector, Lincoln was at the heart of this political imbroglio.
I look forward to the next two volumes.
I look forward to the next two volumes.
May 17, 2020
Volume I of five volumes of the detailed voyage of the Lincoln’s political career ~~~~~thoroughly researched and woven into a Lincoln masterpiece
August 26, 2019
I have read a few biographies of Lincoln but not a multi-volume one on this epic scale. Eventually this book will compromise the first of four volumes. This format allows the author to spread his wings. This book is not a detailed narrative of what Lincoln was doing each day it is more a narrative which features Lincoln as a central character but also concentrates on the shifting politics of the time with especial attention given over to the issue of slavery. There are multitude of characters that the reader becomes acquainted to in the process which for me helps to put Lincoln in his historical context & helps us to see why such a figure as Abraham Lincoln eventually emerged as such a preeminent figure.
I look forward to reading the subsequent volumes.
I look forward to reading the subsequent volumes.
June 4, 2020
Amazingly well researched, not a dry recitation of facts but a living breathing political biography of the beginnings of a truly great president. Full of the kind of details I love, I felt like I got to know the early Lincoln like never before. I listened to the audiobook read perfectly by Arthur Morey. As parsimonious as I am, I plan on buying this book, it's one I could listen to over and over and always pick up something new. I hope the other books by Sidney Blumenthal are it's equal, I have found a rich new vein of historic gold.
September 12, 2017
Very readable, and does a great job making connections among the characters in Lincoln's early life with how they would figure in later years.
Blumenthal does a terrific job of providing context, laying out the political picture of a given time, and then placing Lincoln in the picture. As a result, for the first time, I clearly grasp the elements of the Panic of 1837 and the place of slavery in that fraught period.
I have volume 2 at the ready, and eagerly await volumes 3 and 4.
Blumenthal does a terrific job of providing context, laying out the political picture of a given time, and then placing Lincoln in the picture. As a result, for the first time, I clearly grasp the elements of the Panic of 1837 and the place of slavery in that fraught period.
I have volume 2 at the ready, and eagerly await volumes 3 and 4.
May 30, 2019
An in depth look at the political life of Lincoln. This book includes all the political issues of the era, slavery chief among them, as well as solid biographies of those who would affect Lincoln’s life and his rhetoric, particularly Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Stephen Douglas. I enjoyed the detail.
This book might be compared to Robert Caro’s life of Lyndon Johnson.
This book might be compared to Robert Caro’s life of Lyndon Johnson.
December 21, 2020
Every single character, whether a major future rival or minor foe, received an in-depth background and analysis. And while at times useful, it led to at times a rather dense and slow read. Otherwise, I would’ve given this five stars. Blumenthal’s deep research into the ebb and flow of Lincoln’s political life prior to his meteoric rise to the presidency is evident throughout the book.
July 12, 2019
Having read plenty of books about Lincoln and the Civil War (dozens to be honest), I realized I had never read a thorough, multi-volume account such as Robert Caro's current trip through LBJ's political life, but based on Lincoln as a political creature.
Most accounts of Lincoln's life blow past the details in this book in 40-50 pages at most. This, the first of a now-projected FIVE volumes (3 comes out Sept '19 and ends with the 1860 Presidential election), is a very welcome addition and insightful for me in several areas. The text comes in at 458 pps., but ends with Lincoln's return to Springfield after a one-term House of Representatives stint that was mostly forgettable. But the entirety of national politics, all of the details and minutiae that Lincoln himself knew and had to navigate all the way through April 1865, are encountered here. Readers should expect a complete overview of national politics from the 1820s-1849 especially, and if those details might not appeal to casual viewers, this might not be your book. Avid American history readers will enjoy all of the details and Lincoln's reactions to them. There are many anecdotes of AL that I had never read before, and there are a number of chapters that read as biographies of national figures that impacted both American politics and Lincoln's understanding of them. So, we get dozens of pages on John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, but also William Henry Seward, Horace Mann, Thurlow Weed, and many other political operatives. The approach is such is that we understand politics in Lincoln's times as well (and probably better with hindsight) than he did. That attracts me so I give it five stars. Some readers may not reach as high. But the political maneuverings of the Democrats and Whigs fascinate me as do the multiple clues that the Civil War was completely unavoidable, an opinion even JQA knew to be true. Good stuff for those fascinated by Lincoln the politician.
Most accounts of Lincoln's life blow past the details in this book in 40-50 pages at most. This, the first of a now-projected FIVE volumes (3 comes out Sept '19 and ends with the 1860 Presidential election), is a very welcome addition and insightful for me in several areas. The text comes in at 458 pps., but ends with Lincoln's return to Springfield after a one-term House of Representatives stint that was mostly forgettable. But the entirety of national politics, all of the details and minutiae that Lincoln himself knew and had to navigate all the way through April 1865, are encountered here. Readers should expect a complete overview of national politics from the 1820s-1849 especially, and if those details might not appeal to casual viewers, this might not be your book. Avid American history readers will enjoy all of the details and Lincoln's reactions to them. There are many anecdotes of AL that I had never read before, and there are a number of chapters that read as biographies of national figures that impacted both American politics and Lincoln's understanding of them. So, we get dozens of pages on John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, but also William Henry Seward, Horace Mann, Thurlow Weed, and many other political operatives. The approach is such is that we understand politics in Lincoln's times as well (and probably better with hindsight) than he did. That attracts me so I give it five stars. Some readers may not reach as high. But the political maneuverings of the Democrats and Whigs fascinate me as do the multiple clues that the Civil War was completely unavoidable, an opinion even JQA knew to be true. Good stuff for those fascinated by Lincoln the politician.
April 6, 2024
This is the second of three in a set. It takes us to the year 1846. Each book runs about 450 pages, so it is an undertaking. It will be awhile before I read volume III.
He opens “A Self-Made Man” with Lincoln’s confession, in 1856, that “I used to be a slave.” Here Lincoln was referring to his own exploitation at the hands of his domineering and uneducated father Thomas, who literally “rented him out” to rural neighbors in Indiana, and his subsequent escape once he was of age. Thereafter he began recreating himself. Lincoln was extremely reluctant to talk about his beginnings, simply referring to them as from the poorest of the poor.
Lincoln came to hate the institution of slavery — That was as a result of antislavery Baptists in his early years, his trip to whom he was exposed growing up; his trip as a youth to New Orleans to New Orleans on a barge and seeing the buying and selling of slaves and their families torn apart. He returned to New Salem (Illinois) and there declared to his friends that if he ever got a chance to hit that (the institution of slavery), he would hit it hard.
The author does a creditable job of research, though there are historical errors in the text that any true student of Lincoln sees right away. He is a good writer and while he has errors, he has basically used this book to show how Lincoln – a self made man in all respects – remade himself and choose the political arena as the arena in which to do that.
With that, I shall say no more. Perhaps when I read the final volume, I will do a longer and more detailed review of what Blumenthal has created.
I gave the 2nd book 4 stars and did so a bit reluctantly due to the number of historical errors. But 3 stars seems a bit harsh given the effort and how well he writes.
He opens “A Self-Made Man” with Lincoln’s confession, in 1856, that “I used to be a slave.” Here Lincoln was referring to his own exploitation at the hands of his domineering and uneducated father Thomas, who literally “rented him out” to rural neighbors in Indiana, and his subsequent escape once he was of age. Thereafter he began recreating himself. Lincoln was extremely reluctant to talk about his beginnings, simply referring to them as from the poorest of the poor.
Lincoln came to hate the institution of slavery — That was as a result of antislavery Baptists in his early years, his trip to whom he was exposed growing up; his trip as a youth to New Orleans to New Orleans on a barge and seeing the buying and selling of slaves and their families torn apart. He returned to New Salem (Illinois) and there declared to his friends that if he ever got a chance to hit that (the institution of slavery), he would hit it hard.
The author does a creditable job of research, though there are historical errors in the text that any true student of Lincoln sees right away. He is a good writer and while he has errors, he has basically used this book to show how Lincoln – a self made man in all respects – remade himself and choose the political arena as the arena in which to do that.
With that, I shall say no more. Perhaps when I read the final volume, I will do a longer and more detailed review of what Blumenthal has created.
I gave the 2nd book 4 stars and did so a bit reluctantly due to the number of historical errors. But 3 stars seems a bit harsh given the effort and how well he writes.
August 21, 2024
"I used to be a slave"
Hmm I'm getting Caro-LBJ vibes, I'll continue to see if it sticks but really enjoyed hearing about the boy whose mother died when he was nine. Whose father rented him out as an indentured servant to whoever paid that day. The guy who would be known as the rail splitter, who held his past so close to his chest that even those closest to him could not claim that they knew him. Who when his father died refused to go to the funeral because of the pain of the relationship. Lincoln was known as "The Reader" because he read everything he could get his hands on, who never attended formal school but who taught himself the law.
This was an incredible introduction to the most consequential American President, contextualized him in the political current of his day, his journey as a Whig but as that party fell, he would become the first Republican President.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about Abe evident in the books I've read on him just this summer and each time I'm struck by his story. Life isn't a straight line, you're not going to always get it right but endure and make music that wasn't there before.
Hmm I'm getting Caro-LBJ vibes, I'll continue to see if it sticks but really enjoyed hearing about the boy whose mother died when he was nine. Whose father rented him out as an indentured servant to whoever paid that day. The guy who would be known as the rail splitter, who held his past so close to his chest that even those closest to him could not claim that they knew him. Who when his father died refused to go to the funeral because of the pain of the relationship. Lincoln was known as "The Reader" because he read everything he could get his hands on, who never attended formal school but who taught himself the law.
This was an incredible introduction to the most consequential American President, contextualized him in the political current of his day, his journey as a Whig but as that party fell, he would become the first Republican President.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about Abe evident in the books I've read on him just this summer and each time I'm struck by his story. Life isn't a straight line, you're not going to always get it right but endure and make music that wasn't there before.
April 12, 2020
Great telling of the rise of Lincoln from youth in Indiana, and into politics in Ill. It will surprise no one that there are certain political assumptions made in the story (by the author) that seemed strained at best.
September 14, 2017
I've been reading about Lincoln and the Civil War era for 30+ years, but nothing like this outstanding work. This book compares to Robert Caro's LBJ volumes in the detail Blumenthal brings us of Lincoln's evolution from the rail splitter to the most effective politician of all time. To effectively tell Lincoln's story, the reader needs to understand the times, and in this Blumenthal is outstanding. We learn about Lincoln's ancestors and how the family was dispossessed of its Kentucky landholdings by questionable legal tactics that had roots in the political power of Slave interests. This experience gave Lincoln's luckless, flawed and bitter father, Thomas, an anti slavery perspective that was handed to Abe at a young age.
A theme of the book is that Lincoln comes of age as the first generation of a politicial class following the dying off of the Founding Father's generation. More political and party-oriented, the party politics, machinations, patronage, backstabbing and dirty tricks (many by Lincoln) of the time are described with relish and it is as if you are there, living in early-mid 1800's frontier Illinois.
Like Caro's approach, Lincoln disappears for chapters at a time while Blumenthal provides in depth introductions to key characters of the time: William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun (one chapter begins: "Andrew Jackson's greatest regret as President was not having John C. Calhoun hung"), Joseph Smith, John Quincy Adams, Salmon Chase, William Seward, Thurlow Weed, etc. All are names I've encountered, but never in a way that gets at the essential motivators for these people and that puts them in context of their times and fast moving political events.
John Quincy Adams, in particular, is such a bright spot I'm left to wonder why he is somewhat obscure in our memory. The last surviving link to the Founders, he finds his legs not as President, where his problematic personality limited his effectiveness, but in his encore career in the House of Representatives. There he was able to use his awesome intellect and command of language to consistently be the wrench in the gears of the Southerner members of Congress on the issue of Slavery.
The book has a wonderful in depth treatment of Lincoln's 2 years in Congress, from 1847 - 1849.
The final chapter of this first volume is essentially a preview of volume 2 and is pure poetry, hinting at the re-invigoration of Lincoln by Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Lincoln at this point has gone from the Congress to the political wilderness. All his political experience prior will now come to bear him on the wave of the discord of slavery. Can't wait to read V2!
Fun Fact: Lincoln in 1849, just out of Congress, was offered the post of Governor of Oregon. He was tempted, but Mary Todd put her foot down. Mary Todd is also a star in this book.
A theme of the book is that Lincoln comes of age as the first generation of a politicial class following the dying off of the Founding Father's generation. More political and party-oriented, the party politics, machinations, patronage, backstabbing and dirty tricks (many by Lincoln) of the time are described with relish and it is as if you are there, living in early-mid 1800's frontier Illinois.
Like Caro's approach, Lincoln disappears for chapters at a time while Blumenthal provides in depth introductions to key characters of the time: William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun (one chapter begins: "Andrew Jackson's greatest regret as President was not having John C. Calhoun hung"), Joseph Smith, John Quincy Adams, Salmon Chase, William Seward, Thurlow Weed, etc. All are names I've encountered, but never in a way that gets at the essential motivators for these people and that puts them in context of their times and fast moving political events.
John Quincy Adams, in particular, is such a bright spot I'm left to wonder why he is somewhat obscure in our memory. The last surviving link to the Founders, he finds his legs not as President, where his problematic personality limited his effectiveness, but in his encore career in the House of Representatives. There he was able to use his awesome intellect and command of language to consistently be the wrench in the gears of the Southerner members of Congress on the issue of Slavery.
The book has a wonderful in depth treatment of Lincoln's 2 years in Congress, from 1847 - 1849.
The final chapter of this first volume is essentially a preview of volume 2 and is pure poetry, hinting at the re-invigoration of Lincoln by Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Lincoln at this point has gone from the Congress to the political wilderness. All his political experience prior will now come to bear him on the wave of the discord of slavery. Can't wait to read V2!
Fun Fact: Lincoln in 1849, just out of Congress, was offered the post of Governor of Oregon. He was tempted, but Mary Todd put her foot down. Mary Todd is also a star in this book.
June 23, 2016
In some ways this is an extraordinary book, and a great start to a series by political adviser and reporter Sidney Blumenthal. As the overarching title suggests, this is a book of the political life of Abraham Lincoln, with the focus of this volume on Lincoln's early life up to the time he finishes his first, and only, term as a U.S. Congressman in 1849.
After the first few chapters briefly deal with his early life growing up in Kentucky and Illinois, Blumenthal jumps into the meat of the book. He gives us insight into Lincoln's pre-Mary life and loves, as well as his entry into politics and the law. Blumenthal shows how Lincoln's early experiences as a party man defined his political career, and how he grew into the leader most of us remember as Lincoln. All of these chapters add substantial insight into the workings of the political machinery of the times, building on the well-worn path of basic facts that have been presented in innumerable biographies of the past.
But what makes this book special is how much it delves into the political landscape and players as much as it does about Lincoln. Chapter 4, for example, has no mention of Lincoln at all in its 36 pages; instead it focuses on the battles between two of the most notable and influential men of the period - Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Clay became Lincoln's "beau ideal" of the American System of internal improvements. Calhoun was the self-serving champion of absolute slavery and white supremacy. With many a supporting cast, these two men helped define the question of slavery and, as such, this comprehensive discussion perfectly sets the background under which Lincoln would later take over the mantle.
Similarly, Chapter 5 focuses primarily on former President John Quincy Adams, now in the House of Representatives, who led the revolt against the Gag Rule that forbade even the mention of slavery in Congress. Chapter 9 again rarely mentions Lincoln, focusing instead on the history of Joseph Smith and the beginnings of the Mormon Church. While perhaps less self-evident than the other chapters, much of the early turmoil surrounding the church occurred in Illinois and had a dramatic influence on politics, including the rise of Stephen A. Douglas and (to a lesser extent) that of Abraham Lincoln.
There is so much more to the 18 chapters of the book, and I'll be writing an expanded review for The Lincolnian, the newsletter of the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia. I can safely say that this book is well worth reading. I'll be looking forward to additional volumes dealing with Lincoln's substantive contributions to the slavery question in the 1850s and his presidency of the 1860s.
After the first few chapters briefly deal with his early life growing up in Kentucky and Illinois, Blumenthal jumps into the meat of the book. He gives us insight into Lincoln's pre-Mary life and loves, as well as his entry into politics and the law. Blumenthal shows how Lincoln's early experiences as a party man defined his political career, and how he grew into the leader most of us remember as Lincoln. All of these chapters add substantial insight into the workings of the political machinery of the times, building on the well-worn path of basic facts that have been presented in innumerable biographies of the past.
But what makes this book special is how much it delves into the political landscape and players as much as it does about Lincoln. Chapter 4, for example, has no mention of Lincoln at all in its 36 pages; instead it focuses on the battles between two of the most notable and influential men of the period - Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Clay became Lincoln's "beau ideal" of the American System of internal improvements. Calhoun was the self-serving champion of absolute slavery and white supremacy. With many a supporting cast, these two men helped define the question of slavery and, as such, this comprehensive discussion perfectly sets the background under which Lincoln would later take over the mantle.
Similarly, Chapter 5 focuses primarily on former President John Quincy Adams, now in the House of Representatives, who led the revolt against the Gag Rule that forbade even the mention of slavery in Congress. Chapter 9 again rarely mentions Lincoln, focusing instead on the history of Joseph Smith and the beginnings of the Mormon Church. While perhaps less self-evident than the other chapters, much of the early turmoil surrounding the church occurred in Illinois and had a dramatic influence on politics, including the rise of Stephen A. Douglas and (to a lesser extent) that of Abraham Lincoln.
There is so much more to the 18 chapters of the book, and I'll be writing an expanded review for The Lincolnian, the newsletter of the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia. I can safely say that this book is well worth reading. I'll be looking forward to additional volumes dealing with Lincoln's substantive contributions to the slavery question in the 1850s and his presidency of the 1860s.
April 8, 2017
I suppose that if you set out to write a three-volume series about one person you necessarily need to go into great depth. One danger of going into great depth is in info-dumping on your reader. Another danger, one encountered in this book, is in writing about peripheral things that detract from the main subject. Hence, readers are presented with whole chapters about men who are tangential to the story of Abraham Lincoln but easily could have been avoided without detracting from the life of Lincoln in the least. While interesting in their own right, they distract from the biography about Lincoln and in the end made me think of this book as a history of mid-19th century American politics. That is all fine and well, but I came here to read about Lincoln.
There is info-dumping as well, with more than enough names and dates to make a reader's eyes glaze over. After finishing the first quarter of the book I began to wish that there were fewer pages in this volume. Though the last quarter of the book picked up in pace, the middle part simply dragged.
Read this if you are doing research on Lincoln, as it provides a wealth of collected information related to Lincoln, but if you want a big-picture view of Lincoln this isn't the book for you.
[I received this book free through the Goodreads book giveaway program. Other than the free book, I received nothing in return for this review, nor was I required to write this review.]
There is info-dumping as well, with more than enough names and dates to make a reader's eyes glaze over. After finishing the first quarter of the book I began to wish that there were fewer pages in this volume. Though the last quarter of the book picked up in pace, the middle part simply dragged.
Read this if you are doing research on Lincoln, as it provides a wealth of collected information related to Lincoln, but if you want a big-picture view of Lincoln this isn't the book for you.
[I received this book free through the Goodreads book giveaway program. Other than the free book, I received nothing in return for this review, nor was I required to write this review.]
July 22, 2016
I really enjoyed this first volume of a new biography of Lincoln. I learned a great deal from Blumenthal's exhaustive exploration of Lincoln's rise from poverty and his course through the complicated political landscape of his time. The book deals primarily with the time from Lincoln's birth in 1809 through his departure from Washington in 1849 (though a brief coda covers the years before his re-emergence from obscurity in the debates with Douglas. My only objection is the writer's style, which sometimes involves incredibly convoluted sentences and doesn't remind the reader as often as I would like about what year we are actually in. However, I look forward to the next part.
December 29, 2020
It’s a informative book. But it desperately needed better editing.
I understand the need to contextualize Lincoln and his time period. But when entire chapters are devoted to other people/events with only tangential connections to Lincoln, it gets old fast. That isn’t to say those events and people aren’t important in the grand scheme of the nation and in connection to Lincoln, but the Lincoln narrative suffers and the timeline is rarely clear as Blumenthal’s non-Lincoln narrative moves forward and then reverses course by several years to go back to Lincoln.
I understand the need to contextualize Lincoln and his time period. But when entire chapters are devoted to other people/events with only tangential connections to Lincoln, it gets old fast. That isn’t to say those events and people aren’t important in the grand scheme of the nation and in connection to Lincoln, but the Lincoln narrative suffers and the timeline is rarely clear as Blumenthal’s non-Lincoln narrative moves forward and then reverses course by several years to go back to Lincoln.
September 4, 2017
Overall I thought this was a good read. However, Blumenthal's very negative description of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith comes across as bigoted and not consistent with the objective biographies that have recently been published about him. Made me wonder about the objectivity of the rest of his analysis.
October 13, 2016
Good book
Very thorough read, perhaps too thorough at times, but I learned a few things about Lincoln's life that I did not know -- quite a feat for a man that has been so well written about.
Very thorough read, perhaps too thorough at times, but I learned a few things about Lincoln's life that I did not know -- quite a feat for a man that has been so well written about.
September 5, 2022
Review of: A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849,
by Sidney Blumenthal
by Stan Prager (7-13-22)
Historians consistently rank him at the top, tied with Washington for first place or simply declared America’s greatest president. His tenure was almost precisely synchronous with the nation’s most critical existential threat: his very election sparked secession, first shots fired at Sumter a month after his inauguration, the cannon stilled at Appomattox a week before his murder. There were still armies in the field, but he was gone, replaced by one of the most sinister men to ever take the oath of office, leaving generations of his countrymen to wonder what might have transpired with all the nation’s painful unfinished business had he survived, to the trampled hopes for equality for African Americans to the promise of a truly “New South” that never emerged. A full century ago, decades after his death, he was reimagined as an enormous, seated marble man with the soulful gaze of fixed purpose, the central icon in his monument that provokes tears for so many visitors that stand in awe before him. When people think of Abraham Lincoln, that’s the image that usually springs to mind.
The seated figure rises to a height of nineteen feet; somebody calculated that if it stood up it would be some twenty-eight feet tall. The Lincoln that once walked the earth was not nearly that gargantuan, but he was nevertheless a giant in his time: physically, intellectually—and far too frequently overlooked—politically! He sometimes defies characterization because he was such a character, in so very many ways.
An autodidact gifted with a brilliant analytical mind, he was also a creature of great integrity loyal to a firm sense of a moral center that ever evolved when polished by new experiences and touched by unfamiliar ideas. A savvy politician, he understood how the world worked. He had unshakeable convictions, but he was tolerant of competing views. He had a pronounced sense of empathy for others, even and most especially his enemies. In company, he was a raconteur with a great sense of humor given to anecdotes often laced with self-deprecatory wit. (Lincoln, thought to be homely, when accused in debate of being two-faced, self-mockingly replied: "I leave it to my audience. If I had another face, do you think I'd wear this one?") But despite his many admirable qualities, he was hardly flawless. He suffered with self-doubt, struggled with depression, stumbled through missteps, burned with ambition, and was capable of hosting a mean streak that loomed even as it was generally suppressed. More than anything else he had an outsize personality.
And Lincoln likewise left an outsize record of his life and times! So why has he generally posed such a challenge for biographers? Remarkably, some 15,000 books have been written about him—second, it is said, only to Jesus Christ—but yet in this vast literature, the essence of Lincoln again and again somehow seems out of reach to his chroniclers. We know what he did and how he did it all too well, but portraying what the living Lincoln must have been like has remained frustratingly elusive in all too many narratives. For instance, David Herbert Donald’s highly acclaimed bio—considered by many the best single volume treatment of his life—is indeed impressive scholarship but yet leaves us with a Lincoln who is curiously dull and lifeless. Known for his uproarious banter, the guy who joked about being ugly for political advantage is glaringly absent in most works outside of Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, which superbly captures him but remains, alas, a novel not a history.
All that changed with A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849, by Sidney Blumenthal (2016), an epic, ambitious, magnificent contribution to the historiography that demonstrates not only that despite the thousands of pages written about him there still remains much to say about the man and his times, but even more significantly that it is possible to brilliantly recreate for readers what it must have been like to engage with the flesh and blood Lincoln. This is the first in a projected four-volume study (two subsequent volumes have been published to date) that—as the subtitle underscores—emphasize the “political life” of Lincoln, another welcome contribution to a rapidly expanding genre focused upon politics and power, as showcased in such works as Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Robert Dallek’s Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, and George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, by David O. Stewart.
At first glance, this tactic might strike as surprising, since prior to his election as president in 1860 Lincoln could boast of little in the realm of public office beyond service in the Illinois state legislature and a single term in the US House of Representatives in the late 1840s. But, as Blumenthal’s deeply researched and well-written account reveals, politics defined Lincoln to his very core, inextricably manifested in his life and character from his youth onward, something too often disregarded by biographers of his early days. It turns out that Lincoln was every bit a political animal, and there is a trace of that in nearly every job he ever took, every personal relationship he ever formed, and every goal he ever chased.
This approach triggers a surprising epiphany for the student of Lincoln. It is as if an entirely new dimension of the man has been exposed for the first time that lends new meaning to words and actions previously treated superficially or—worse—misunderstood by other biographers. Early on, Blumenthal argues that Donald and others have frequently been misled by Lincoln’s politically crafted utterances that cast him as marked by passivity, too often taking him at his word when a careful eye on the circumstances demonstrates the exact opposite. In contrast, Lincoln, ever maneuvering, if quietly, could hardly be branded as passive [p9]. Given this perspective, the life and times of young Abe is transformed into something far richer and more colorful than the usual accounts of his law practice and domestic pursuits. In another context, I once snarkily exclaimed “God save us from The Prairie Years” because I found Lincoln’s formative period—and not just Sandburg’s version of it—so uninteresting and unrelated to his later rise. Blumenthal has proved me wrong, and that sentiment deeply misplaced.
But Blumenthal not only succeeds in fleshing out a far more nuanced portrait of Lincoln—an impressive accomplishment on its own—but in the process boldly sets out to do nothing less than scrupulously detail the political history of the United States in the antebellum years from the Jackson-Calhoun nullification crisis onward. Ambitious is hardly an adequate descriptive for the elaborate narrative that results, a product of both prodigious research and a very talented pen. Scores of pages—indeed whole chapters—occur with literally no mention of Lincoln at all, a striking technique that is surprisingly successful; while Lincoln may appear conspicuous in his absence, he is nevertheless present, like the reader a studious observer of these tumultuous times even when he is not directly engaged, only making an appearance when the appropriate moment beckons. As such, A Self-Made Man is every bit as much a book of history as it is biography, a key element to the unstated author’s thesis: that it is impossible to truly get to know Lincoln—especially the political Lincoln—except in the context and complexity of his times, a critical emphasis not afforded in other studies.
And there is much to chronicle in these times. Some of this material is well known, even if until recently subject to faulty analysis. The conventional view of the widespread division that characterized the antebellum period centered on a sometimes-paranoid south on the defensive, jealous of its privileges, in fear of a north encroaching upon its rights. But in keeping with the latest historiography, Blumenthal deftly highlights how it was that, in contrast, the slave south—which already wielded a disproportionate share of national political power due to the Constitution’s three-fifths clause that inflated its representation—not only stifled debate on slavery but aggressively lobbied for its expansion. And just as a distinctly southern political ideology evolved its notion of the peculiar institution from the “wolf by the ear” necessary evil of Jefferson’s time to a vaunted hallmark of civilization that boasted benefit to master and servant, so too did it come to view the threat of separation less in dread than anticipation. The roots of all that an older Lincoln would witness severing the ancient “bonds of affection” of the then no longer united states were planted in these, his early years.
Other material is less familiar. Who knew how integral to Illinois politics—for a time—was the cunning Joseph Smith and his Mormon sect? Or that Smith’s path was once entangled with the budding career of Stephen A. Douglas? Meanwhile, the author sheds new light on the long rivalry between Lincoln and Douglas, which had deep roots that went back to the 1830s, decades before their celebrated clash on the national stage brought Lincoln to a prominence that finally eclipsed Douglas’s star.
Blumenthal’s insight also adeptly connects the present to the past, affording a greater relevance for today’s reader. He suggests that the causes of the financial crisis of 2008 were not all that dissimilar to those that drove the Panic of 1837, but rather than mortgage-backed securities and a housing bubble, it was the monetization of human beings as slave property that leveraged enormous fortunes that vanished overnight when an oversupply of cotton sent market prices plummeting, which triggered British banks to call in loans on American debtors—a cotton bubble that burst spectacularly (p158-59). This point can hardly be overstated, since slavery was not only integral to the south’s economy, but by the eve of secession human property was to represent the largest single form of wealth in the nation, exceeding the combined value of all American railroads, banks, and factories. A cruel system that assigned values to men, women, and children like cattle had deep ramifications not only for masters who acted as “breeders” in the Chesapeake and markets in the deep south, but also for insurance companies in Hartford, textile mills in Lowell, and banks in London.
Although Blumenthal does not himself make this point, I could detect eerie if imperfect parallels to the elections of 2016 and 1844, with Lincoln seething as the perfect somehow became the enemy of the good. In that contest, Whig Henry Clay was up against Democrat James K. Polk. Both were slaveowners, but Clay opposed the expansion of slavery while Polk championed it. Antislavery purists in New York rejected Clay for the tiny Liberty Party, which by a slender margin tipped the election to Polk, who then boosted the slave power with Texas annexation, and served as principal author of the Mexican War that added vast territories to the nation, setting forces in motion that later spawned secession and Civil War. Lincoln was often prescient, but of course he could not know all that was to follow when, a year after Clay’s defeat, he bitterly denounced the “moral absolutism” that led to the “unintended tragic consequences” of Polk’s elevation to the White House (p303). To my mind, there was an echo of this in the 2016 disaster that saw Donald Trump prevail, a victory at least partially driven by those unwilling to support Hillary Clinton who—despite the stakes—threw away their votes on Jill Stein and Gary Johnson.
No review could properly summarize the wealth of the material contained here, nor overstate the quality of the presentation, which also suggests much promise for the volumes that follow. I must admit that at the outset I was reluctant to read yet another book about Lincoln, but A Self-Made Man was recommended to me by no less than historian Rick Perlstein, (author of Nixonland), and like Perlstein, Blumenthal’s style is distinguished by animated prose bundled with a kind of uncontained energy that frequently delivers paragraphs given to an almost breathless exhale of ideas and people and events that expertly locates the reader at the very center of concepts and consequences. The result is something exceedingly rare for books of history or biography: a page-turner! Whether new to studies of Lincoln or a long-time devotee, this book should be required reading.
Review of: A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849, by Sidney Blumenthal https://regarp.com/2022/07/13/review-...
by Sidney Blumenthal
by Stan Prager (7-13-22)
Historians consistently rank him at the top, tied with Washington for first place or simply declared America’s greatest president. His tenure was almost precisely synchronous with the nation’s most critical existential threat: his very election sparked secession, first shots fired at Sumter a month after his inauguration, the cannon stilled at Appomattox a week before his murder. There were still armies in the field, but he was gone, replaced by one of the most sinister men to ever take the oath of office, leaving generations of his countrymen to wonder what might have transpired with all the nation’s painful unfinished business had he survived, to the trampled hopes for equality for African Americans to the promise of a truly “New South” that never emerged. A full century ago, decades after his death, he was reimagined as an enormous, seated marble man with the soulful gaze of fixed purpose, the central icon in his monument that provokes tears for so many visitors that stand in awe before him. When people think of Abraham Lincoln, that’s the image that usually springs to mind.
The seated figure rises to a height of nineteen feet; somebody calculated that if it stood up it would be some twenty-eight feet tall. The Lincoln that once walked the earth was not nearly that gargantuan, but he was nevertheless a giant in his time: physically, intellectually—and far too frequently overlooked—politically! He sometimes defies characterization because he was such a character, in so very many ways.
An autodidact gifted with a brilliant analytical mind, he was also a creature of great integrity loyal to a firm sense of a moral center that ever evolved when polished by new experiences and touched by unfamiliar ideas. A savvy politician, he understood how the world worked. He had unshakeable convictions, but he was tolerant of competing views. He had a pronounced sense of empathy for others, even and most especially his enemies. In company, he was a raconteur with a great sense of humor given to anecdotes often laced with self-deprecatory wit. (Lincoln, thought to be homely, when accused in debate of being two-faced, self-mockingly replied: "I leave it to my audience. If I had another face, do you think I'd wear this one?") But despite his many admirable qualities, he was hardly flawless. He suffered with self-doubt, struggled with depression, stumbled through missteps, burned with ambition, and was capable of hosting a mean streak that loomed even as it was generally suppressed. More than anything else he had an outsize personality.
And Lincoln likewise left an outsize record of his life and times! So why has he generally posed such a challenge for biographers? Remarkably, some 15,000 books have been written about him—second, it is said, only to Jesus Christ—but yet in this vast literature, the essence of Lincoln again and again somehow seems out of reach to his chroniclers. We know what he did and how he did it all too well, but portraying what the living Lincoln must have been like has remained frustratingly elusive in all too many narratives. For instance, David Herbert Donald’s highly acclaimed bio—considered by many the best single volume treatment of his life—is indeed impressive scholarship but yet leaves us with a Lincoln who is curiously dull and lifeless. Known for his uproarious banter, the guy who joked about being ugly for political advantage is glaringly absent in most works outside of Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, which superbly captures him but remains, alas, a novel not a history.
All that changed with A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849, by Sidney Blumenthal (2016), an epic, ambitious, magnificent contribution to the historiography that demonstrates not only that despite the thousands of pages written about him there still remains much to say about the man and his times, but even more significantly that it is possible to brilliantly recreate for readers what it must have been like to engage with the flesh and blood Lincoln. This is the first in a projected four-volume study (two subsequent volumes have been published to date) that—as the subtitle underscores—emphasize the “political life” of Lincoln, another welcome contribution to a rapidly expanding genre focused upon politics and power, as showcased in such works as Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Robert Dallek’s Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, and George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, by David O. Stewart.
At first glance, this tactic might strike as surprising, since prior to his election as president in 1860 Lincoln could boast of little in the realm of public office beyond service in the Illinois state legislature and a single term in the US House of Representatives in the late 1840s. But, as Blumenthal’s deeply researched and well-written account reveals, politics defined Lincoln to his very core, inextricably manifested in his life and character from his youth onward, something too often disregarded by biographers of his early days. It turns out that Lincoln was every bit a political animal, and there is a trace of that in nearly every job he ever took, every personal relationship he ever formed, and every goal he ever chased.
This approach triggers a surprising epiphany for the student of Lincoln. It is as if an entirely new dimension of the man has been exposed for the first time that lends new meaning to words and actions previously treated superficially or—worse—misunderstood by other biographers. Early on, Blumenthal argues that Donald and others have frequently been misled by Lincoln’s politically crafted utterances that cast him as marked by passivity, too often taking him at his word when a careful eye on the circumstances demonstrates the exact opposite. In contrast, Lincoln, ever maneuvering, if quietly, could hardly be branded as passive [p9]. Given this perspective, the life and times of young Abe is transformed into something far richer and more colorful than the usual accounts of his law practice and domestic pursuits. In another context, I once snarkily exclaimed “God save us from The Prairie Years” because I found Lincoln’s formative period—and not just Sandburg’s version of it—so uninteresting and unrelated to his later rise. Blumenthal has proved me wrong, and that sentiment deeply misplaced.
But Blumenthal not only succeeds in fleshing out a far more nuanced portrait of Lincoln—an impressive accomplishment on its own—but in the process boldly sets out to do nothing less than scrupulously detail the political history of the United States in the antebellum years from the Jackson-Calhoun nullification crisis onward. Ambitious is hardly an adequate descriptive for the elaborate narrative that results, a product of both prodigious research and a very talented pen. Scores of pages—indeed whole chapters—occur with literally no mention of Lincoln at all, a striking technique that is surprisingly successful; while Lincoln may appear conspicuous in his absence, he is nevertheless present, like the reader a studious observer of these tumultuous times even when he is not directly engaged, only making an appearance when the appropriate moment beckons. As such, A Self-Made Man is every bit as much a book of history as it is biography, a key element to the unstated author’s thesis: that it is impossible to truly get to know Lincoln—especially the political Lincoln—except in the context and complexity of his times, a critical emphasis not afforded in other studies.
And there is much to chronicle in these times. Some of this material is well known, even if until recently subject to faulty analysis. The conventional view of the widespread division that characterized the antebellum period centered on a sometimes-paranoid south on the defensive, jealous of its privileges, in fear of a north encroaching upon its rights. But in keeping with the latest historiography, Blumenthal deftly highlights how it was that, in contrast, the slave south—which already wielded a disproportionate share of national political power due to the Constitution’s three-fifths clause that inflated its representation—not only stifled debate on slavery but aggressively lobbied for its expansion. And just as a distinctly southern political ideology evolved its notion of the peculiar institution from the “wolf by the ear” necessary evil of Jefferson’s time to a vaunted hallmark of civilization that boasted benefit to master and servant, so too did it come to view the threat of separation less in dread than anticipation. The roots of all that an older Lincoln would witness severing the ancient “bonds of affection” of the then no longer united states were planted in these, his early years.
Other material is less familiar. Who knew how integral to Illinois politics—for a time—was the cunning Joseph Smith and his Mormon sect? Or that Smith’s path was once entangled with the budding career of Stephen A. Douglas? Meanwhile, the author sheds new light on the long rivalry between Lincoln and Douglas, which had deep roots that went back to the 1830s, decades before their celebrated clash on the national stage brought Lincoln to a prominence that finally eclipsed Douglas’s star.
Blumenthal’s insight also adeptly connects the present to the past, affording a greater relevance for today’s reader. He suggests that the causes of the financial crisis of 2008 were not all that dissimilar to those that drove the Panic of 1837, but rather than mortgage-backed securities and a housing bubble, it was the monetization of human beings as slave property that leveraged enormous fortunes that vanished overnight when an oversupply of cotton sent market prices plummeting, which triggered British banks to call in loans on American debtors—a cotton bubble that burst spectacularly (p158-59). This point can hardly be overstated, since slavery was not only integral to the south’s economy, but by the eve of secession human property was to represent the largest single form of wealth in the nation, exceeding the combined value of all American railroads, banks, and factories. A cruel system that assigned values to men, women, and children like cattle had deep ramifications not only for masters who acted as “breeders” in the Chesapeake and markets in the deep south, but also for insurance companies in Hartford, textile mills in Lowell, and banks in London.
Although Blumenthal does not himself make this point, I could detect eerie if imperfect parallels to the elections of 2016 and 1844, with Lincoln seething as the perfect somehow became the enemy of the good. In that contest, Whig Henry Clay was up against Democrat James K. Polk. Both were slaveowners, but Clay opposed the expansion of slavery while Polk championed it. Antislavery purists in New York rejected Clay for the tiny Liberty Party, which by a slender margin tipped the election to Polk, who then boosted the slave power with Texas annexation, and served as principal author of the Mexican War that added vast territories to the nation, setting forces in motion that later spawned secession and Civil War. Lincoln was often prescient, but of course he could not know all that was to follow when, a year after Clay’s defeat, he bitterly denounced the “moral absolutism” that led to the “unintended tragic consequences” of Polk’s elevation to the White House (p303). To my mind, there was an echo of this in the 2016 disaster that saw Donald Trump prevail, a victory at least partially driven by those unwilling to support Hillary Clinton who—despite the stakes—threw away their votes on Jill Stein and Gary Johnson.
No review could properly summarize the wealth of the material contained here, nor overstate the quality of the presentation, which also suggests much promise for the volumes that follow. I must admit that at the outset I was reluctant to read yet another book about Lincoln, but A Self-Made Man was recommended to me by no less than historian Rick Perlstein, (author of Nixonland), and like Perlstein, Blumenthal’s style is distinguished by animated prose bundled with a kind of uncontained energy that frequently delivers paragraphs given to an almost breathless exhale of ideas and people and events that expertly locates the reader at the very center of concepts and consequences. The result is something exceedingly rare for books of history or biography: a page-turner! Whether new to studies of Lincoln or a long-time devotee, this book should be required reading.
Review of: A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849, by Sidney Blumenthal https://regarp.com/2022/07/13/review-...
February 2, 2020
Reared in the backwoods of Indiana and Illinois, subsumed within the tyranny of his father and the isolation of a life without regular schooling, books, or intellectual pursuits, Abraham Lincoln gradually begins his climb out of poverty and on to the national stage. Sidney Blumenthal not only charts Lincoln's youth and early political career, but also inserts chapters on the politics of the era - the rise of Jackson; the increasing sectionalism of politics; the ambitions of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun; and the growth of abolitionism from a fringe movement to a national cause - that add to the sense of young Lincoln's place.
The fascinating aspect of Blumenthal's work is more in its salvaging of Lincoln the political operator. Over the century and half, Lincoln, like Washington, has become en-marbled, raised above what he was in life to embody some sort of American ideal, a symbol of a new nation. Lincoln was not some man above politics, but rather a man very much mired, and thriving, in the muck of Illinois politicking.
The volume tracks Lincoln through the end of his one-term in Congress, expiring in 1848 after Lincoln's determined stance against the Mexican War and its corrupt beginnings. At the end, we do not find Lincoln rising like a meteor, but falling into mediocrity, somewhat responsible for the loss of his Congressional seat to a Democrat (Lincoln was not on the ballot), and unable to secure even the most meager of patronage positions for his friends and colleagues, as well as himself.
Blumenthal's research is well-done; the prose is not ringing, but neither is it dull. The story Blumenthal paints is larger than Lincoln, rather the story of a nation convulsed by division and unsure of its future, just like the man who would become its savior.
The fascinating aspect of Blumenthal's work is more in its salvaging of Lincoln the political operator. Over the century and half, Lincoln, like Washington, has become en-marbled, raised above what he was in life to embody some sort of American ideal, a symbol of a new nation. Lincoln was not some man above politics, but rather a man very much mired, and thriving, in the muck of Illinois politicking.
The volume tracks Lincoln through the end of his one-term in Congress, expiring in 1848 after Lincoln's determined stance against the Mexican War and its corrupt beginnings. At the end, we do not find Lincoln rising like a meteor, but falling into mediocrity, somewhat responsible for the loss of his Congressional seat to a Democrat (Lincoln was not on the ballot), and unable to secure even the most meager of patronage positions for his friends and colleagues, as well as himself.
Blumenthal's research is well-done; the prose is not ringing, but neither is it dull. The story Blumenthal paints is larger than Lincoln, rather the story of a nation convulsed by division and unsure of its future, just like the man who would become its savior.
October 9, 2017
This is one of the more detailed history books I have ever read. This is the first in what will be a series of books that detail the political life of Abraham Lincoln. Countless books have been written about Lincoln, but what sets this book apart is the almost overwhelming details given about seemingly anyone of importance at the national and local (for Illinois and Washington, DC) levels during the years of the 1820s through the 1840s. At times it was difficult to keep all of the people organized in my head while reading, but I have to say that I learned more from this book than any book I can remember reading in a long time.
I think the author was very fair showing us Lincoln as he was, warts and all. At times he was very biased against some historical figures including John C. Calhoun (who he basically blames for everything bad that happened in the country during his time as a political leader) and Joseph Smith. If I was Mormon, I would probably be offended by the chapters describing the early years of the Mormons and their leader Smith.
I most enjoyed learning about the real divisions in the anti-slavery movements of the time. We always have the idea that all Northerners were abolitionists but as this book makes clear, the abolitionists were considered extreme radicals and there was a real difference between being an abolitionist and someone considered anti-slavery. Within those groups there were sub-groups and like any real political movement, no matter how important the cause, politics and ambition drove most of the decisions.
Highly recommended but only for those that have a deep knowledge of of the antebellum era coming into the book.
I think the author was very fair showing us Lincoln as he was, warts and all. At times he was very biased against some historical figures including John C. Calhoun (who he basically blames for everything bad that happened in the country during his time as a political leader) and Joseph Smith. If I was Mormon, I would probably be offended by the chapters describing the early years of the Mormons and their leader Smith.
I most enjoyed learning about the real divisions in the anti-slavery movements of the time. We always have the idea that all Northerners were abolitionists but as this book makes clear, the abolitionists were considered extreme radicals and there was a real difference between being an abolitionist and someone considered anti-slavery. Within those groups there were sub-groups and like any real political movement, no matter how important the cause, politics and ambition drove most of the decisions.
Highly recommended but only for those that have a deep knowledge of of the antebellum era coming into the book.
June 21, 2023
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ Book 66 of 2023. “The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man (1809 - 1849)” by Sidney Blumenthal.
Three of Sidney Blumenthal’s five-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln have been published, and I’ve read them backwards.
Volume three covers 1856 - 1860 which I bought and read when it was first published in late 2019, I then read volume two covering 1849 - 1856 in 2020.
I have only now just got around to the first volume, covering the first 40 years of Lincoln’s life; from birth to his political slumber following the election of President Zachary Taylor.
I’ve read quite a few single-volume Lincoln biographies (and some multiple) and they tend to breeze through this period of his life to get to his comeback: his resurgence, rebirth, and handling of the Civil War.
So it was nice to spend more time reading about his formative years, and his time as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives and then the United States House of Representatives.
Blumenthal also dedicates chapters to some key figures in these years, such as Calhoun, to provide more context as to what happened around Lincoln.
I would 100% recommend this multi-volume series, and can’t wait for volumes four and five which will cover the Civil War.
Three of Sidney Blumenthal’s five-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln have been published, and I’ve read them backwards.
Volume three covers 1856 - 1860 which I bought and read when it was first published in late 2019, I then read volume two covering 1849 - 1856 in 2020.
I have only now just got around to the first volume, covering the first 40 years of Lincoln’s life; from birth to his political slumber following the election of President Zachary Taylor.
I’ve read quite a few single-volume Lincoln biographies (and some multiple) and they tend to breeze through this period of his life to get to his comeback: his resurgence, rebirth, and handling of the Civil War.
So it was nice to spend more time reading about his formative years, and his time as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives and then the United States House of Representatives.
Blumenthal also dedicates chapters to some key figures in these years, such as Calhoun, to provide more context as to what happened around Lincoln.
I would 100% recommend this multi-volume series, and can’t wait for volumes four and five which will cover the Civil War.
December 5, 2023
this is a good one. i often get a sick of political biographies early in. how many are plodding and fawning? too many. sid does a good job avoiding this. by delving into the background of illinois politics, the whig party, and the many great political figures of the era to show the stew that lincoln was cooking in, you get a richer sense of how and why lincoln became what he was as opposed to books that focus too myopically on their subjects. maybe i'm missing out on some fun personal details like how when david mccullough recounts in truman that harry truman ate chinese food the first time he went to nyc and was not impressed, but i think i'll manage.
and lincoln is just a great subject. a figure who becomes more admirable and amazing the more you learn about him. just a cool dude. a cool president. no wonder sid is writing these books. keep it up man
and lincoln is just a great subject. a figure who becomes more admirable and amazing the more you learn about him. just a cool dude. a cool president. no wonder sid is writing these books. keep it up man
March 5, 2020
One of the best political biographies (up there with Caro's on Johnson) and one of the best and most interesting I've read on Lincoln himself, this is a great read. Covering the 1830's and 40s not only do we read about Lincoln's development as a politician but also about the people and events of a too little known chapter of American History: Clay, Calhoun, Jackson, Douglas, the Mormons in Illinois, political patronage, the rise of the party system, etc. etc. I recommend it highly and look forward to the other volumes in the complete work. (Three are now in print but apparently there are still two more to come.)
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