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Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856
The “magisterial” (The New York Times Book Review) second volume of Sidney Blumenthal’s acclaimed, landmark biography, The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, reveals the future president’s genius during the most decisive period of his political life when he seizes the moment, finds his voice, and helps create a new political party.In 1849, Abraham Lincoln seems condemned to political isolation and defeat. His Whig Party is broken in the 1852 election, and disintegrates. His perennial rival, Stephen Douglas, forges an alliance with the Southern senators and Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. Violent struggle breaks out on the plains of Kansas, a prelude to the Civil War. Lincoln rises to the occasion. Only he can take on Douglas in Illinois. He finally delivers the dramatic speech that leaves observers stunned. In 1855, he makes a race for the Senate against Douglas, which he loses when he throws his support to a rival to prevent the election of a proslavery candidate. In Wrestling With His Angel, Sidney Blumenthal explains how Lincoln and his friends operate behind the scenes to destroy the anti-immigrant party in Illinois to clear the way for a new Republican Party. Lincoln takes command and writes its first platform and vaults onto the national stage as the leader of a party that will launch him to the presidency. The Washington Monthly hailed Blumenthal’s Volume I as, “splendid…no one can come away from reading A Self-Made Man without eagerly anticipating the ensuing volumes.” Pulitzer Prize–winning author Diane McWhorter hailed Volume II as “dramatic narrative history, prophetic and intimate.” Wrestling With His Angel brings Lincoln from the wilderness to the peak of his career as he is determined to enter into the battle for the nation’s soul and to win it for democracy.
609 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 16, 2017
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October 2, 2022
As in the first volume of this series, there’s not a whole lot of Lincoln in this second volume, as Blumenthal digs deep into the political issues of the time while the ambitious-but-dispirited former Congressman Lincoln is largely absent from the spotlight. Unlike the first volume, though, where the background and context felt to me incessant and often extraneous, the background and context here is much more relevant to the emergence of Lincoln from the political wilderness to become the Lincoln we know today.
In the book’s prologue, Blumenthal appears to address those who might critique his structure and process of focusing more on the political “times” than the political “life” of Lincoln. "Events must be chronicled,” he writes. “To do Lincoln justice, the history must be done justice." The rest of the prologue sets up where we left Lincoln at the end of the first volume - dejected, involuntarily retired from active politics, and looking for a way to get back in. "His ambition was not dampened,” Blumenthal observes, “it simply had no outlet.”
It was the failure of the Compromise of 1850 and renewed arguments about the expansion of slavery that provided the outlet for Lincoln’s political ambition, as his long-held antislavery convictions became more pronounced, less personal and more political. So Blumenthal devotes the majority of this book to exploring what brought us to this point, what caused the Compromise to fail as a permanent political solution to the issue of slavery, and the man at the center of it all - Stephen Douglas.
Douglas is portrayed as the antithesis of Lincoln - ambitious without convictions, calculating, expedient, self-interested. As the Clay/Calhoun/Webster generation faded away, Douglas represented the next generation of lawmakers and claimed credit for pushing the Compromise of 1850 through when Clay alone could not. Lincoln may have had ambition, but only when combined with strong convictions could he parlay his ambition into power. Douglas, in contrast, was a wheeling-and-dealing politician who felt he was owed higher office. And, through a complex combination of ambition and avarice, he (though not he alone) championed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which helped destroy any hope that the Compromise would settle matters.
Through it all, Blumenthal traces the resulting political realignments, with Democrats becoming divided, the Whigs falling apart, various third parties emerging, and the Republican party forming, as previous party divisions began realigning into North-South divisions.
It’s an excellent political history of the era, though I confess to becoming impatient at times waiting for Lincoln to come back into the story. The entire book, really, is background and prologue that, while important, could probably still have been accomplished a little more concisely, without so many deep dives into secondary and tertiary characters.
It all finally begins to pay off about 3/4 of the way in, as Lincoln steps back into the spotlight. "Douglas inadvertently cut the path that allowed Lincoln to emerge from his wilderness," Blumenthal writes. And the fact that both were from Illinois is not mere coincidence, but crucial - others could challenge Douglas on the national stage, but only Lincoln could, and did, step up to challenge him face-to-face on his home turf.
The writing is sometimes sassy (as when Blumenthal describes Millard Fillmore at one point as "wiping the cobwebs from his inert brain"), sometimes repetitive (as Blumenthal repeats several anecdotes at different points in the book), and sometimes sloppy. I won’t get into an exhaustive fact check, but I present as examples a few instances where Blumenthal seems to have trouble with numbers - at one point, he states that Congressional Democrats had "68 percent of their seats from slave states but only 39 percent from free states." He describes the Missouri Compromise as banning slavery above 30°60’ (which would cover almost the entire country) instead of the actual 36°30’. And he relates the story of a Congressional floor speech given on February 29, 1854 - when there was no such date.
Overall, though, despite some errors and Lincoln’s absence from much of the book, it succeeds in laying the groundwork for Lincoln’s emergence as an important, more mature and well-spoken politician. He begins to “test his phrases and themes” that will later define his legacy, as he transforms from the “slasher-gaff politico” who had previously ridiculed opponents and offered little of substance. The book seems to ably set up volume three, where Lincoln presumably plays an even greater role. I’ll soon find out.
In the book’s prologue, Blumenthal appears to address those who might critique his structure and process of focusing more on the political “times” than the political “life” of Lincoln. "Events must be chronicled,” he writes. “To do Lincoln justice, the history must be done justice." The rest of the prologue sets up where we left Lincoln at the end of the first volume - dejected, involuntarily retired from active politics, and looking for a way to get back in. "His ambition was not dampened,” Blumenthal observes, “it simply had no outlet.”
It was the failure of the Compromise of 1850 and renewed arguments about the expansion of slavery that provided the outlet for Lincoln’s political ambition, as his long-held antislavery convictions became more pronounced, less personal and more political. So Blumenthal devotes the majority of this book to exploring what brought us to this point, what caused the Compromise to fail as a permanent political solution to the issue of slavery, and the man at the center of it all - Stephen Douglas.
Douglas is portrayed as the antithesis of Lincoln - ambitious without convictions, calculating, expedient, self-interested. As the Clay/Calhoun/Webster generation faded away, Douglas represented the next generation of lawmakers and claimed credit for pushing the Compromise of 1850 through when Clay alone could not. Lincoln may have had ambition, but only when combined with strong convictions could he parlay his ambition into power. Douglas, in contrast, was a wheeling-and-dealing politician who felt he was owed higher office. And, through a complex combination of ambition and avarice, he (though not he alone) championed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which helped destroy any hope that the Compromise would settle matters.
Through it all, Blumenthal traces the resulting political realignments, with Democrats becoming divided, the Whigs falling apart, various third parties emerging, and the Republican party forming, as previous party divisions began realigning into North-South divisions.
It’s an excellent political history of the era, though I confess to becoming impatient at times waiting for Lincoln to come back into the story. The entire book, really, is background and prologue that, while important, could probably still have been accomplished a little more concisely, without so many deep dives into secondary and tertiary characters.
It all finally begins to pay off about 3/4 of the way in, as Lincoln steps back into the spotlight. "Douglas inadvertently cut the path that allowed Lincoln to emerge from his wilderness," Blumenthal writes. And the fact that both were from Illinois is not mere coincidence, but crucial - others could challenge Douglas on the national stage, but only Lincoln could, and did, step up to challenge him face-to-face on his home turf.
The writing is sometimes sassy (as when Blumenthal describes Millard Fillmore at one point as "wiping the cobwebs from his inert brain"), sometimes repetitive (as Blumenthal repeats several anecdotes at different points in the book), and sometimes sloppy. I won’t get into an exhaustive fact check, but I present as examples a few instances where Blumenthal seems to have trouble with numbers - at one point, he states that Congressional Democrats had "68 percent of their seats from slave states but only 39 percent from free states." He describes the Missouri Compromise as banning slavery above 30°60’ (which would cover almost the entire country) instead of the actual 36°30’. And he relates the story of a Congressional floor speech given on February 29, 1854 - when there was no such date.
Overall, though, despite some errors and Lincoln’s absence from much of the book, it succeeds in laying the groundwork for Lincoln’s emergence as an important, more mature and well-spoken politician. He begins to “test his phrases and themes” that will later define his legacy, as he transforms from the “slasher-gaff politico” who had previously ridiculed opponents and offered little of substance. The book seems to ably set up volume three, where Lincoln presumably plays an even greater role. I’ll soon find out.
August 6, 2017
Another must-read book in Blumenthal's four-part series on the political life of Abraham Lincoln. This second volume covers the period between 1849 and 1856, much of which time Lincoln was essentially out of politics. Following his single term as a U.S. Congressman, Lincoln returned to Springfield to build his law practice. He was politically absent as others in the East fought the battles leading to the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. It was the latter that "aroused" Lincoln as never before and got him back into politics. Covered are Lincoln's first set of debates against Stephen A. Douglas in 1854 and the run-up to Lincoln's first failed Senate race in 1856.
Lincoln purists will perhaps find the book woefully missing its main character as Lincoln rarely appears in the first two-thirds of the book and essentially absent from 80% of it. Some may see this as a weakness of the book, but I see it as its main strength. Lincoln was, in fact, not intimately involved in the political tug of wars going on in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Washington, DC during this period. In his first book of the series, Blumenthal spends considerable time exploring the other actors and events that set the stage for the rise of Lincoln. This is especially important in this period of Lincoln's political inactivity and essential for the understanding of conditions that allowed Lincoln to become the leader he became. Blumenthal aptly documents the actions of key figures such as aging icons Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, as well as the rise of Stephen A. Douglas and Jefferson Davis.
This deep background, using today's parlance, is absolutely necessary for a proper understanding of both the times and of Lincoln himself. Blumenthal's in-depth and highly researched scholarship brings the times to clarity for us all.
The final few chapters focus more on Lincoln as he struggles with the demise of the Whigs and the ascension of a new Republican party. After losing the Senate race as a Whig (on a technicality and deception by the Democrats in Illinois), Lincoln helped to formalize the Illinois Republican party and quickly rose to become one of its great leaders.
The book ends prior to the 1856 presidential race, the first in which a Republican candidate is put forth. The next volume, according to Blumenthal, should cover the period from that election, through the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates that gave Lincoln national exposure, past the 1860 election, and all the way up to Gettysburg. If you haven't read these first two books, start now. They are hefty in both size and scholarship, but well worth the time.
Lincoln purists will perhaps find the book woefully missing its main character as Lincoln rarely appears in the first two-thirds of the book and essentially absent from 80% of it. Some may see this as a weakness of the book, but I see it as its main strength. Lincoln was, in fact, not intimately involved in the political tug of wars going on in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Washington, DC during this period. In his first book of the series, Blumenthal spends considerable time exploring the other actors and events that set the stage for the rise of Lincoln. This is especially important in this period of Lincoln's political inactivity and essential for the understanding of conditions that allowed Lincoln to become the leader he became. Blumenthal aptly documents the actions of key figures such as aging icons Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, as well as the rise of Stephen A. Douglas and Jefferson Davis.
This deep background, using today's parlance, is absolutely necessary for a proper understanding of both the times and of Lincoln himself. Blumenthal's in-depth and highly researched scholarship brings the times to clarity for us all.
The final few chapters focus more on Lincoln as he struggles with the demise of the Whigs and the ascension of a new Republican party. After losing the Senate race as a Whig (on a technicality and deception by the Democrats in Illinois), Lincoln helped to formalize the Illinois Republican party and quickly rose to become one of its great leaders.
The book ends prior to the 1856 presidential race, the first in which a Republican candidate is put forth. The next volume, according to Blumenthal, should cover the period from that election, through the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates that gave Lincoln national exposure, past the 1860 election, and all the way up to Gettysburg. If you haven't read these first two books, start now. They are hefty in both size and scholarship, but well worth the time.
August 19, 2021
The second volume of Sidney Blumenthal's review of Abraham Lincoln's life begins after Lincoln returns home to Springfield following his single term in Congress. Lincoln had just failed to procure patronage jobs for any of his friends or supporters, and also for himself. This volume covers the crucial period leading up to the Civil War, ending in 1856 as Lincoln helps found the Republican Party. Along the way, Blumenthal takes a deep dive into the confusing and crazy world of domestic politics in mid-19th century America.
Except for a couple of chapters, Lincoln is hardly in this book at all until about the last quarter of it. Blumenthal seems intent on giving readers much more of a context of the times in which Lincoln lived than in a straight biography about Lincoln. That was quite apparent in the first volume, but even more so here. There are long stretches where Lincoln is not mentioned at all. Much of the action here takes place in Washington D.C., and most of the action revolves around the Compromise of 1850 and the controversy surrounding how to admit Kansas and Nebraska as states.
Blumenthal does such a good job describing what the mood was like in various parts of the country and in differing political circles. Honestly it is hard to keep all of the factions straight: the Democrats then are not anything like the Democrats today, the Whig Party was imploding, the rise of the Free-Soil Party, the creation of the American Party, the nativist Know-Nothing Party, abolitionists, "Hards" and "Softs" among New York Democrats, the anti-Stephen Douglas Democrats, the remnants of Southern Whigs, the Ultras. So numerous are these parties and parts of parties that after awhile it is self-defeating to try to remember who stood for what. And also throw in the fact that some people would switch factions, or even amongst the same party and ideology two people might be opposed on how to reach their goals. Along the way, Blumenthal focuses in on Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Jefferson Davis, Franklin Pierce, Zachary Taylor and others.
But it is a fascinating period, and one which I do not think has gotten nearly enough attention from historians. The Compromise of 1850 (which in essence is a repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which set a fixed geographical line for the allowance of slavery while letting Missouri into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state) that Douglas managed to stitch together after Clay's failed effort really inflamed an already tense situation. Douglas, who was extremely ambitious and hated blacks with a passion, was a full Southern sympathizer despite being a Northerner. The South wanted slavery extended; the North wanted it limited. The Compromise gave each side some of what it wanted, but satisfied no one as the Southerners were not willing to settle for any limitations being placed on slavery while many in the North felt that they were being made subservient to the wishes of the South.
Things really get cooking though when Douglas forces through the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. This was basically akin to pouring gasoline on a not-quite smoldering fire. Douglas' creation of "popular sovereignty" (in essence allowing Kansas to choose whether it wanted to be slave or free) incensed a lot of people. Many Democrats defected from the party, or remained but became virulently anti-Douglas. And, perhaps most disastrous of all for Douglas' own personal ambitions (though not evident right away) it brought Lincoln out of the political wilderness and back into the fray. The main reason, I suspect, that Lincoln does not appear in much of the book is because from 1849-1854 he was almost completely out of politics, making only a couple of scattered speeches, no campaigning hardly at all, and focusing almost exclusively on his legal practice.
While this volume, like the first, is of a very high quality, I did notice that Blumenthal repeated himself a few times early on. Also, Lincoln being absent for such a large portion of the book was a bit of a surprise to me. The first volume had a nice balance between having a chapter on Lincoln's life and then a few on what was going on in the country. This one was much more heavily tilted away from Lincoln until it became solely focused on him. While not bad by any stretch, I thought the first book read a bit easier thanks to the more even back-and-forth. Nonetheless, this is a great book and well worth reading. I add the above more so for anyone who is considering reading this: if what you are looking for is a straight-up treatment on Lincoln's life, you will be disappointed as that is not what Blumenthal is doing here. But if you want something that examines not only Lincoln's life but also the unique challenges faced by him and the friends and enemies that he engaged with, while providing a wonderful analysis of a critical juncture in American history, then this is definitely a book you want to invest some time in. I am glad that I did.
Grade: A
Except for a couple of chapters, Lincoln is hardly in this book at all until about the last quarter of it. Blumenthal seems intent on giving readers much more of a context of the times in which Lincoln lived than in a straight biography about Lincoln. That was quite apparent in the first volume, but even more so here. There are long stretches where Lincoln is not mentioned at all. Much of the action here takes place in Washington D.C., and most of the action revolves around the Compromise of 1850 and the controversy surrounding how to admit Kansas and Nebraska as states.
Blumenthal does such a good job describing what the mood was like in various parts of the country and in differing political circles. Honestly it is hard to keep all of the factions straight: the Democrats then are not anything like the Democrats today, the Whig Party was imploding, the rise of the Free-Soil Party, the creation of the American Party, the nativist Know-Nothing Party, abolitionists, "Hards" and "Softs" among New York Democrats, the anti-Stephen Douglas Democrats, the remnants of Southern Whigs, the Ultras. So numerous are these parties and parts of parties that after awhile it is self-defeating to try to remember who stood for what. And also throw in the fact that some people would switch factions, or even amongst the same party and ideology two people might be opposed on how to reach their goals. Along the way, Blumenthal focuses in on Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Jefferson Davis, Franklin Pierce, Zachary Taylor and others.
But it is a fascinating period, and one which I do not think has gotten nearly enough attention from historians. The Compromise of 1850 (which in essence is a repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which set a fixed geographical line for the allowance of slavery while letting Missouri into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state) that Douglas managed to stitch together after Clay's failed effort really inflamed an already tense situation. Douglas, who was extremely ambitious and hated blacks with a passion, was a full Southern sympathizer despite being a Northerner. The South wanted slavery extended; the North wanted it limited. The Compromise gave each side some of what it wanted, but satisfied no one as the Southerners were not willing to settle for any limitations being placed on slavery while many in the North felt that they were being made subservient to the wishes of the South.
Things really get cooking though when Douglas forces through the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. This was basically akin to pouring gasoline on a not-quite smoldering fire. Douglas' creation of "popular sovereignty" (in essence allowing Kansas to choose whether it wanted to be slave or free) incensed a lot of people. Many Democrats defected from the party, or remained but became virulently anti-Douglas. And, perhaps most disastrous of all for Douglas' own personal ambitions (though not evident right away) it brought Lincoln out of the political wilderness and back into the fray. The main reason, I suspect, that Lincoln does not appear in much of the book is because from 1849-1854 he was almost completely out of politics, making only a couple of scattered speeches, no campaigning hardly at all, and focusing almost exclusively on his legal practice.
While this volume, like the first, is of a very high quality, I did notice that Blumenthal repeated himself a few times early on. Also, Lincoln being absent for such a large portion of the book was a bit of a surprise to me. The first volume had a nice balance between having a chapter on Lincoln's life and then a few on what was going on in the country. This one was much more heavily tilted away from Lincoln until it became solely focused on him. While not bad by any stretch, I thought the first book read a bit easier thanks to the more even back-and-forth. Nonetheless, this is a great book and well worth reading. I add the above more so for anyone who is considering reading this: if what you are looking for is a straight-up treatment on Lincoln's life, you will be disappointed as that is not what Blumenthal is doing here. But if you want something that examines not only Lincoln's life but also the unique challenges faced by him and the friends and enemies that he engaged with, while providing a wonderful analysis of a critical juncture in American history, then this is definitely a book you want to invest some time in. I am glad that I did.
Grade: A
July 10, 2017
Sidney Blumenthal’s Wrestling with His Angel — The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln is political history, covering US politics from 1849 to 1856, that places Lincoln in the context of his times. For the first 250 pages of the book, there’s not much said about Lincoln. Instead, Blumenthal recounts the North-South, Democrat-Whig, struggles seeking to find some way in which the United States could remain united with slavery in its bowels.
If there is anything this book accomplishes, it puts an end to any idea that the Civil War was not about slavery (i.e., it was really about states’ rights or purely economic rivalry) and that the Civil War was avoidable and/or unnecessary. Southern selfish hypocrisy and Northern obsessive indignation are presented in detail, the chief antagonists being John Calhoun and Henry Clay succeeded by Jefferson Davis/Stephen Douglas and, eventually, Abraham Lincoln.
Slavery was a crisis without end, and when it found an end, it was begun again. No compromise or measure from the Ordinance of 1787 through the Missouri Compromise and onward was a final settlement The issue as we know was extending this pernicious institution to the new territories (substantially, but not entirely, taken from Mexico). Blumenthal’s portraits of Clay, the Kentuckian who sought to constrain slavery; Davis, the Mississippian who exhibited an incredible will in supporting slavery and dreaming of its extension to Cuba, more of Mexico, and Central America (a Southern Empire); and Douglas, the political king of Illinois always in overdrive due to ambition, greed, and a lot of whiskey, are compelling.
Davis’s control of the agreeable, handsome, and malleable Franklin Pierce is presented with great art and insight. Douglas, the master dealmaker and egomaniac, is Davis’s equal in guile and determination. Poor Clay served to illustrate–to Lincoln–the power of the pro-slavery factions, aided and abetted by men like Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan.
Lincoln, in this volume of a multi-part study, spends many, many pages riding the Illinois judicial circuits and attempting to save the Whigs. He is a one-term congressman with a powerful mind, compassion for all other human beings, and a certain practical bent when it comes to aiding and abetting the political process in Illinois, about which we learn more, probably, than is of interest to most readers.
Blumenthal’s best work on Lincoln comes not from general descriptions of party politics or the views and analyses of Lincoln’s friends but from his presentation of Lincoln in his own pre-presidential words, both as a speaker and a letter-writer. There is at one and the same time a direct firmness in Lincoln’s argumentation and an evocative gift for making use of the Bible and Shakespeare (in particular) in advancing his uncomfortable belief that slavery must come to a violent end. Remember, this is in the mid-1850s, so don’t let anyone tell you that Lincoln didn’t sense and live through the inevitability of the Civil War. He was practical and would have preferred some other end, but his forebodings were strong and accurate.
What we see is a deeply, deeply political Lincoln, a man of self-discipline and self-restraint, who has a knack for inspiring trust in others and deploying them, move by move, on a complex chessboard. Chicago is one thing, Springfield is another–let’s put it that way. He does not want to give up on the Whigs and takes the longest time, years, accommodating himself to the need to forget them and move on the aligning himself with the newborn Republicans.
That Lincoln was a Republican and the current president of the United States is a Republican should not be taken as meaningful. Lincoln’s thoughtfulness, his precision, his humility, his wit and humanity made him an epic of a man. No contemporary comparison is welcome.
Blumenthal’s 250 pages of “setting the stage” for Lincoln’s re-entry into politics after leaving Congress (one term) probably is necessary but surely could be compressed to give this study more narrative impetus. That’s more than a quibble, but it’s still an impressive work of U.S. political history.
If there is anything this book accomplishes, it puts an end to any idea that the Civil War was not about slavery (i.e., it was really about states’ rights or purely economic rivalry) and that the Civil War was avoidable and/or unnecessary. Southern selfish hypocrisy and Northern obsessive indignation are presented in detail, the chief antagonists being John Calhoun and Henry Clay succeeded by Jefferson Davis/Stephen Douglas and, eventually, Abraham Lincoln.
Slavery was a crisis without end, and when it found an end, it was begun again. No compromise or measure from the Ordinance of 1787 through the Missouri Compromise and onward was a final settlement The issue as we know was extending this pernicious institution to the new territories (substantially, but not entirely, taken from Mexico). Blumenthal’s portraits of Clay, the Kentuckian who sought to constrain slavery; Davis, the Mississippian who exhibited an incredible will in supporting slavery and dreaming of its extension to Cuba, more of Mexico, and Central America (a Southern Empire); and Douglas, the political king of Illinois always in overdrive due to ambition, greed, and a lot of whiskey, are compelling.
Davis’s control of the agreeable, handsome, and malleable Franklin Pierce is presented with great art and insight. Douglas, the master dealmaker and egomaniac, is Davis’s equal in guile and determination. Poor Clay served to illustrate–to Lincoln–the power of the pro-slavery factions, aided and abetted by men like Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan.
Lincoln, in this volume of a multi-part study, spends many, many pages riding the Illinois judicial circuits and attempting to save the Whigs. He is a one-term congressman with a powerful mind, compassion for all other human beings, and a certain practical bent when it comes to aiding and abetting the political process in Illinois, about which we learn more, probably, than is of interest to most readers.
Blumenthal’s best work on Lincoln comes not from general descriptions of party politics or the views and analyses of Lincoln’s friends but from his presentation of Lincoln in his own pre-presidential words, both as a speaker and a letter-writer. There is at one and the same time a direct firmness in Lincoln’s argumentation and an evocative gift for making use of the Bible and Shakespeare (in particular) in advancing his uncomfortable belief that slavery must come to a violent end. Remember, this is in the mid-1850s, so don’t let anyone tell you that Lincoln didn’t sense and live through the inevitability of the Civil War. He was practical and would have preferred some other end, but his forebodings were strong and accurate.
What we see is a deeply, deeply political Lincoln, a man of self-discipline and self-restraint, who has a knack for inspiring trust in others and deploying them, move by move, on a complex chessboard. Chicago is one thing, Springfield is another–let’s put it that way. He does not want to give up on the Whigs and takes the longest time, years, accommodating himself to the need to forget them and move on the aligning himself with the newborn Republicans.
That Lincoln was a Republican and the current president of the United States is a Republican should not be taken as meaningful. Lincoln’s thoughtfulness, his precision, his humility, his wit and humanity made him an epic of a man. No contemporary comparison is welcome.
Blumenthal’s 250 pages of “setting the stage” for Lincoln’s re-entry into politics after leaving Congress (one term) probably is necessary but surely could be compressed to give this study more narrative impetus. That’s more than a quibble, but it’s still an impressive work of U.S. political history.
November 14, 2017
Blumenthal's second volume of a proposed trilogy, should, in the interest of strict accuracy, be entitled "Wrestling with his Angel: The Political Life AND TIMES of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856. These momentous years saw the final great efforts of the Giants of the Senate, Webster, Clay and Calhoun, and their efforts at compromise to save the Union in 1850. Party politics shifted as slavery demolished the Whigs, the nativist Know-Nothings rose, and the Democrats emerged as the single remaining national party. But these years saw Lincoln in political purgatory, and resigned to his law office. Blumenthal aptly observes that "There was no plausible office for him to seek." And unfortunately, Lincoln left no diary and in these years rarely spoke on the stump, so his voice is maddeningly absent here. Blumenthal's account of these years is detailed, nuanced and interesting, but Lincoln, himself, only appears in about 20% of the narrative. I look forward to Volume III.
April 15, 2018
A truly outstanding book. I learned many new things here. The volume is as much a history as a biography. In setting the scene where Lincoln lived the author can go more than 100 pages without mentioning Lincoln. The book shows that the nasty corrupt politics has a long history in the USA
July 29, 2020
4.5. Volume II , The formative political development of Lincoln ~~~ well researched and smoothly delivered. Particularly enjoyed his sparring with Stephen Douglas.
August 28, 2019
This is easily the period of Lincoln's life that we know the least about, and Blumenthal's second volume covers it in spades. The first half of the book doesn't feature Lincoln much at all, but explores the minutiae of national politics that led to the dissolution of the Whig party and the formation of the Republican party. It turns out Lincoln was a key founder of that party in Illinois and an unfrequent sparring partner of Stephen Douglas, who is a major political figure at this time (nearly nominated twice for his party's nomination before 1860). By the end of the book, we see Lincoln emerging from the shadows of his law firm to begin making statements against slavery and its spread. What this series does so well is fill in all of the details of national politics that Lincoln. The picture emerges that Lincoln was full of ambition rather than a dark horse, and was a name on the scene, especially in Illinois. Volume 3, due next week, will cover the Buchanan Presidency and Lincoln's election and I can't wait.
April 15, 2023
Review of: Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856, and All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860,
by Sidney Blumenthal
by Stan Prager (4-15-23)
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, although his name did not appear on the ballot in ten southern states. Just about six weeks later, South Carolina seceded. This information is communicated in only the final few of the more than six hundred pages contained in All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860, the ambitious third installment in Sidney Blumenthal’s projected five-volume series. But this book, just as the similarly thick ones that preceded it, is burdened neither by unnecessary paragraphs nor even a single gratuitous sentence. Still, most noteworthy, Abraham Lincoln—the ostensible subject—is conspicuous in his absence in vast portions of this intricately detailed and extremely well-written narrative that goes well beyond the boundaries of ordinary biography to deliver a much-needed re-evaluation of the tumultuous age that he sprang from in order to account for how it was that this unlikely figure came to dominate it. The surprising result is that through this unique approach, the reader will come to know and appreciate the nuance and complexity that was the man and his times like never before.
When I was in school, in the standard textbooks Lincoln seems to come out of nowhere. A homespun, prairie lawyer who served a single, unremarkable term in the House of Representatives, he is thrust into national prominence when he debates Stephen A. Douglas in his ultimately unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate, then somehow rebounds just two years later by skipping past Congress and into the White House. Douglas, once one of the most well-known and consequential figures of his day, slips into historical obscurity. Meanwhile, long-simmering sectional disputes between white men on both sides roar to life with Lincoln’s election, sparking secession by a south convinced that their constitutional rights and privileges are under assault. Slavery looms just vaguely on the periphery. Civil War ensues, an outgunned Confederacy falls, Lincoln is assassinated, slavery is abolished, national reconciliation follows, and African Americans are even more thoroughly erased from history than Stephen Douglas.
Of course, the historiography has come a long way since then. While fringe “Lost Cause” adherents still speak of states’ rights, the scholarly consensus has unequivocally established human chattel slavery as the central cause for the conflict, as well as resurrected the essential role of African Americans—who comprised a full ten percent of the Union army—in putting down the rebellion. In recent decades, this has motivated historians to reexamine the prewar and postwar years through a more polished lens. That has enabled a more thorough exploration of the antebellum period that had been too long cluttered with grievances of far less significance such as the frictions in rural vs. urban, agriculture vs. industry, and tariffs vs. free trade. Such elements may indeed have exacerbated tensions, but without slavery there could have been no Civil War.
And yet … and yet with all the literature that has resulted from this more recent scholarship, much of it certainly superlative, students of the era cannot help but detect the shadows of missing bits and pieces, like the dark matter in the universe we know exists but struggle to identify. This is at least partially due to timelines that fail to properly chart root causes that far precede traditional antebellum chronologies that sometimes look back no further than the Mexican War—which at the same time serves as a bold underscore to the lack of agreement on even a consistent “start date” for the antebellum. Not surprisingly perhaps, this murkiness has also crept into the realm of Lincoln studies, to the disfavor of genres that should be complementary rather than competing.
In fact, the trajectory of Lincoln’s life and the antebellum are inextricably conjoined, a reality that Sidney Blumenthal brilliantly captures with a revolutionary tactic that chronicles these as a single, intertwined narrative that begins with A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849 (which I reviewed elsewhere). It is evident that at Lincoln’s birth the slave south already effectively controlled the government, not only by way of a string of chief executives who also happened to be Virginia plantation dynasts, but—of even greater consequence—outsize representation obtained via the Constitution’s “Three-Fifth’s Clause.” But even then, there were signs that the slave power—pregnant with an exaggerated sense of their own self-importance, a conviction of moral superiority, as well as a ruthless will to dominate—possessed an unquenchable appetite to enlarge their extraordinary political power to steer the ship of state—frequently enabled by the northern men of southern sympathies then disparaged as “doughfaces.” Lincoln was eleven at the time of the Missouri Compromise, twenty-three during the Nullification Crisis so closely identified with John C. Calhoun, twenty-seven when the first elements of the “gag rule” in the House so ardently opposed by John Quincy Adams were instituted, thirty-seven at the start of both the Mexican War and his sole term as an Illinois Congressman, where he questioned the legitimacy of that conflict. That same year, Stephen A. Douglas, also of Illinois, was elected U.S. Senator.
Through it all, the author proves as adept as historian of the United States as he is biographer of Lincoln—who sometimes goes missing for a chapter or more, only summoned when the account calls for him to make an appearance. Some critics have voiced their frustration at Lincoln’s own absence for extended portions in what is after all his own biography, but they seem to be missing the point. As Blumenthal demonstrates in this and subsequent volumes, it is not only impossible to study Lincoln without surveying the age that he walked the earth, but it turns out that it is equally impossible to analyze the causes of the Civil War absent an analysis of Lincoln, because he was such a critical figure along the way.
Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856, picks up where A Self-Made Man leaves off, and that in turn is followed by All the Powers of Earth. All form a single unbroken narrative of politics and power, something that happens to fit with my growing affinity for political biography, as distinguished by David O. Stewart’s George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, and Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, by Robert Dallek. Blumenthal, of course, takes this not only to a whole new level, but to an entirely new dimension.
For more recent times, the best of the best in this genre appears in works by historian Rick Perlstein (author of Nixonland and Reaganland) who also happens to be the guy who recommended Blumenthal to me. In the pages of Perlstein’s Reaganland, Jimmy Carter occupies center-stage far more so than Ronald Reagan, since without Carter’s failed presidency there never could have been a President Reagan. Similarly, Blumenthal cedes a good deal of Lincoln’s spotlight to Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln’s longtime rival and the most influential doughface of his time. Many have dubbed John C. Calhoun the true instigator in the process that led to Civil War a decade after his death. And while that reputation may not be undeserved, it might be overstated. Calhoun, a southerner who celebrated slavery, championed nullification, and normalized notions of secession, could indeed be credited with paving the road to disunion. But, as Blumenthal skillfully reveals, maniacally gripping the reins of the wagon that in a confluence of unintended consequences was to hurtle towards both secession and war was the under-sized, racist, alcoholic, bombastic, narcissistic, ambitious, pro-slavery but pro-union northerner Stephen A. Douglas, the so-called “Little Giant.”
Like Calhoun, Douglas was self-serving and opportunistic, with a talent for constructing an ideological framework for issues that suited his purposes. But unlike Calhoun, while he often served their interests Douglas was a northern man never accepted nor entirely trusted by the southern elite that he toadied to in his cyclical unrequited hopes they would back his presidential ambitions. Such support never materialized.
It may not have been clear at the time, and the history books tend to overlook it, but Blumenthal demonstrates that it was the rivalry between Douglas and Lincoln that truly defined the struggles and outcomes of the age. It was Douglas who—undeterred by the failed efforts of Henry Clay—shepherded through the Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act that was such an anathema to the north. More significantly, the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act that repealed the Missouri Compromise was Douglas’s brainchild, and Douglas was to continue to champion his doctrine of “popular sovereignty” even after Taney’s ruling in Dred Scott invalidated it. It was Douglas’s fantasy that he alone could unite the states of north and south, even as the process of fragmentation was well underway, a course he himself surely if inadvertently set in motion. Douglas tried to be everyone’s man, and in the end he was to be no one’s. Throughout all of this, over many years, Blumenthal argues, Lincoln—out of elective office but hardly a bystander—followed Douglas. Lincoln’s election brought secession, but if a sole agent was to be named for fashioning the circumstances that ignited the Civil War, that discredit would surely go to Douglas, not Lincoln.
These two volumes combined well exceed a thousand pages, not including copious notes and back matter, so no review can appropriately capture it all except to say that collectively it represents a magnificent achievement that succeeds in treating the reader to what the living Lincoln was like while recreating the era that defined him. Indeed, including his first book, I have thus far read nearly sixteen hundred pages of Blumenthal’s Lincoln and my attention has never wavered. Only Robert Caro—with his Shakespearian multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson—has managed to keep my interest as long as Blumenthal. And I can’t wait for the next two in the series to hit the press! To date, more than fifteen thousand books have been published about Abraham Lincoln, so there are many to choose from. Still, these from Blumenthal are absolutely required reading.
I reviewed Blumenthal’s first volume, A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849, here: https://regarp.com/2022/07/13/review-...
I reviewed Rick Perlstein’s Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980, here: https://regarp.com/2020/10/31/review-...
Review of: Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856, and All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860, by Sidney Blumenthal – Regarp Book Blog https://regarp.com/2023/04/15/review-...
by Sidney Blumenthal
by Stan Prager (4-15-23)
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, although his name did not appear on the ballot in ten southern states. Just about six weeks later, South Carolina seceded. This information is communicated in only the final few of the more than six hundred pages contained in All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860, the ambitious third installment in Sidney Blumenthal’s projected five-volume series. But this book, just as the similarly thick ones that preceded it, is burdened neither by unnecessary paragraphs nor even a single gratuitous sentence. Still, most noteworthy, Abraham Lincoln—the ostensible subject—is conspicuous in his absence in vast portions of this intricately detailed and extremely well-written narrative that goes well beyond the boundaries of ordinary biography to deliver a much-needed re-evaluation of the tumultuous age that he sprang from in order to account for how it was that this unlikely figure came to dominate it. The surprising result is that through this unique approach, the reader will come to know and appreciate the nuance and complexity that was the man and his times like never before.
When I was in school, in the standard textbooks Lincoln seems to come out of nowhere. A homespun, prairie lawyer who served a single, unremarkable term in the House of Representatives, he is thrust into national prominence when he debates Stephen A. Douglas in his ultimately unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate, then somehow rebounds just two years later by skipping past Congress and into the White House. Douglas, once one of the most well-known and consequential figures of his day, slips into historical obscurity. Meanwhile, long-simmering sectional disputes between white men on both sides roar to life with Lincoln’s election, sparking secession by a south convinced that their constitutional rights and privileges are under assault. Slavery looms just vaguely on the periphery. Civil War ensues, an outgunned Confederacy falls, Lincoln is assassinated, slavery is abolished, national reconciliation follows, and African Americans are even more thoroughly erased from history than Stephen Douglas.
Of course, the historiography has come a long way since then. While fringe “Lost Cause” adherents still speak of states’ rights, the scholarly consensus has unequivocally established human chattel slavery as the central cause for the conflict, as well as resurrected the essential role of African Americans—who comprised a full ten percent of the Union army—in putting down the rebellion. In recent decades, this has motivated historians to reexamine the prewar and postwar years through a more polished lens. That has enabled a more thorough exploration of the antebellum period that had been too long cluttered with grievances of far less significance such as the frictions in rural vs. urban, agriculture vs. industry, and tariffs vs. free trade. Such elements may indeed have exacerbated tensions, but without slavery there could have been no Civil War.
And yet … and yet with all the literature that has resulted from this more recent scholarship, much of it certainly superlative, students of the era cannot help but detect the shadows of missing bits and pieces, like the dark matter in the universe we know exists but struggle to identify. This is at least partially due to timelines that fail to properly chart root causes that far precede traditional antebellum chronologies that sometimes look back no further than the Mexican War—which at the same time serves as a bold underscore to the lack of agreement on even a consistent “start date” for the antebellum. Not surprisingly perhaps, this murkiness has also crept into the realm of Lincoln studies, to the disfavor of genres that should be complementary rather than competing.
In fact, the trajectory of Lincoln’s life and the antebellum are inextricably conjoined, a reality that Sidney Blumenthal brilliantly captures with a revolutionary tactic that chronicles these as a single, intertwined narrative that begins with A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849 (which I reviewed elsewhere). It is evident that at Lincoln’s birth the slave south already effectively controlled the government, not only by way of a string of chief executives who also happened to be Virginia plantation dynasts, but—of even greater consequence—outsize representation obtained via the Constitution’s “Three-Fifth’s Clause.” But even then, there were signs that the slave power—pregnant with an exaggerated sense of their own self-importance, a conviction of moral superiority, as well as a ruthless will to dominate—possessed an unquenchable appetite to enlarge their extraordinary political power to steer the ship of state—frequently enabled by the northern men of southern sympathies then disparaged as “doughfaces.” Lincoln was eleven at the time of the Missouri Compromise, twenty-three during the Nullification Crisis so closely identified with John C. Calhoun, twenty-seven when the first elements of the “gag rule” in the House so ardently opposed by John Quincy Adams were instituted, thirty-seven at the start of both the Mexican War and his sole term as an Illinois Congressman, where he questioned the legitimacy of that conflict. That same year, Stephen A. Douglas, also of Illinois, was elected U.S. Senator.
Through it all, the author proves as adept as historian of the United States as he is biographer of Lincoln—who sometimes goes missing for a chapter or more, only summoned when the account calls for him to make an appearance. Some critics have voiced their frustration at Lincoln’s own absence for extended portions in what is after all his own biography, but they seem to be missing the point. As Blumenthal demonstrates in this and subsequent volumes, it is not only impossible to study Lincoln without surveying the age that he walked the earth, but it turns out that it is equally impossible to analyze the causes of the Civil War absent an analysis of Lincoln, because he was such a critical figure along the way.
Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856, picks up where A Self-Made Man leaves off, and that in turn is followed by All the Powers of Earth. All form a single unbroken narrative of politics and power, something that happens to fit with my growing affinity for political biography, as distinguished by David O. Stewart’s George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, and Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, by Robert Dallek. Blumenthal, of course, takes this not only to a whole new level, but to an entirely new dimension.
For more recent times, the best of the best in this genre appears in works by historian Rick Perlstein (author of Nixonland and Reaganland) who also happens to be the guy who recommended Blumenthal to me. In the pages of Perlstein’s Reaganland, Jimmy Carter occupies center-stage far more so than Ronald Reagan, since without Carter’s failed presidency there never could have been a President Reagan. Similarly, Blumenthal cedes a good deal of Lincoln’s spotlight to Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln’s longtime rival and the most influential doughface of his time. Many have dubbed John C. Calhoun the true instigator in the process that led to Civil War a decade after his death. And while that reputation may not be undeserved, it might be overstated. Calhoun, a southerner who celebrated slavery, championed nullification, and normalized notions of secession, could indeed be credited with paving the road to disunion. But, as Blumenthal skillfully reveals, maniacally gripping the reins of the wagon that in a confluence of unintended consequences was to hurtle towards both secession and war was the under-sized, racist, alcoholic, bombastic, narcissistic, ambitious, pro-slavery but pro-union northerner Stephen A. Douglas, the so-called “Little Giant.”
Like Calhoun, Douglas was self-serving and opportunistic, with a talent for constructing an ideological framework for issues that suited his purposes. But unlike Calhoun, while he often served their interests Douglas was a northern man never accepted nor entirely trusted by the southern elite that he toadied to in his cyclical unrequited hopes they would back his presidential ambitions. Such support never materialized.
It may not have been clear at the time, and the history books tend to overlook it, but Blumenthal demonstrates that it was the rivalry between Douglas and Lincoln that truly defined the struggles and outcomes of the age. It was Douglas who—undeterred by the failed efforts of Henry Clay—shepherded through the Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act that was such an anathema to the north. More significantly, the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act that repealed the Missouri Compromise was Douglas’s brainchild, and Douglas was to continue to champion his doctrine of “popular sovereignty” even after Taney’s ruling in Dred Scott invalidated it. It was Douglas’s fantasy that he alone could unite the states of north and south, even as the process of fragmentation was well underway, a course he himself surely if inadvertently set in motion. Douglas tried to be everyone’s man, and in the end he was to be no one’s. Throughout all of this, over many years, Blumenthal argues, Lincoln—out of elective office but hardly a bystander—followed Douglas. Lincoln’s election brought secession, but if a sole agent was to be named for fashioning the circumstances that ignited the Civil War, that discredit would surely go to Douglas, not Lincoln.
These two volumes combined well exceed a thousand pages, not including copious notes and back matter, so no review can appropriately capture it all except to say that collectively it represents a magnificent achievement that succeeds in treating the reader to what the living Lincoln was like while recreating the era that defined him. Indeed, including his first book, I have thus far read nearly sixteen hundred pages of Blumenthal’s Lincoln and my attention has never wavered. Only Robert Caro—with his Shakespearian multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson—has managed to keep my interest as long as Blumenthal. And I can’t wait for the next two in the series to hit the press! To date, more than fifteen thousand books have been published about Abraham Lincoln, so there are many to choose from. Still, these from Blumenthal are absolutely required reading.
I reviewed Blumenthal’s first volume, A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849, here: https://regarp.com/2022/07/13/review-...
I reviewed Rick Perlstein’s Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980, here: https://regarp.com/2020/10/31/review-...
Review of: Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856, and All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860, by Sidney Blumenthal – Regarp Book Blog https://regarp.com/2023/04/15/review-...
July 26, 2017
As with the previous volume, Blumenthal traces Lincoln's times and political self-education. Again, the only flaw is that some of the discussion of minor political figures and the ins and outs of politics sometimes week by week is so fine-grained as to become overwhelming. (The focus can move away from Lincoln for up to 150 pages at a time.) Still, this is an engrossing explication of how Lincoln became the towering figure that we know, a practical politician with a considerable moral underpinning.
February 6, 2018
It's extraordinary details paint a picture of the politics leading up to the Civil War with the disintegration of the Whig Party and the rise of the Republican Party and Lincoln's journey there. The overview of events is critical for understanding the nation's history. Blumenthal is weaving a story which is very readable, although he describes the history and the future of every man he mentions. the cast of characters is dizzying, but it doesn't hurt to skim the information when it becomes burdensome.
January 19, 2018
Contains a lot more than just biographical information. Basically provides all the needed political context to understand what lead up to Lincoln's presidency.
August 14, 2021
My wife gave me three of these volumes with the fourth being worked on. I chose to read the 2nd one first as I expected that the first (covering 1809 – 1949) might be a bit slow to read. Each of the three books run about 500 pages and are filled with a lot of material and detail. i.e. – for me, a bit of a slow read. I will tackle volume 3 next, but after a break from Lincoln for a few weeks or even months.
This picks up after Lincoln served one term in the house of Representative in Washington City. He had not put much of anything on the record of note, though he did try to get slavery outlawed in the district. He failed at that effort. He also was highly critical of President Polk and his war against Mexico. We gained a lot of territory in that war and of course this appealed to Polk and his southern support with eyes on expansion of slavery. Lincoln demanded that Polk cite specifics of the basis for going to war with Mexico. He of course, did not. Remember, Polk bought and sold slaves with impunity while living in the executive mansion as President.
So, Lincoln returned to Springfield and resumed his law practice. He felt that his political days were over at that point. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, brought him back into the political arena. He was essentially a state oriented attorney, but was very angry with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise that he was right back in and a clear challenger to Stephen A. Douglas a state and national power of note. Douglas supported the Kansas Nebraska Act. That act created popular sovereignty, which led to what is now known as “Bleeding Kansas”. This was a result of pro and anti slavery elements in that state trying to affect the vote outcome. A vicious time.
This was followed by a surprising landslide presidential victory in 1852 of Franklin Pierce was only 49 when elected. He was naively “led” by both Stephen A. Douglas and Jefferson Davis, war secretary and as he said, “acting president of the United States”.
During this time the author reminds us of the changing of the guard. Gone are such notables Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, all of whom Lincoln admired.
Lincoln was following very closely Douglas, both in writing as well as when he was speaking. Make no mistake about it, Lincoln was an intellectual giant and it was only a matter of time before the “new and focused” Lincoln would emerge onto the national stage. All of this led to the now famous Lincoln- Douglas debates 1858. Lincoln lost that battle for a senate seat (determined by the state legislature in those days), but it set the stage for his nomination and eventual run for the presidency in 1860.
The Whig party collapsed and eventually many of those former members – including Lincoln – built and grew the Republican Party. If he needed more impetus, add the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act!
I have never read anything Blumenthal wrote until now. I was impressed with the research he did, the references provided, index and bibliography are outstanding.
I will read volume III next, but after a break. Currently reading Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham another “semi-tome”.
This picks up after Lincoln served one term in the house of Representative in Washington City. He had not put much of anything on the record of note, though he did try to get slavery outlawed in the district. He failed at that effort. He also was highly critical of President Polk and his war against Mexico. We gained a lot of territory in that war and of course this appealed to Polk and his southern support with eyes on expansion of slavery. Lincoln demanded that Polk cite specifics of the basis for going to war with Mexico. He of course, did not. Remember, Polk bought and sold slaves with impunity while living in the executive mansion as President.
So, Lincoln returned to Springfield and resumed his law practice. He felt that his political days were over at that point. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, brought him back into the political arena. He was essentially a state oriented attorney, but was very angry with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise that he was right back in and a clear challenger to Stephen A. Douglas a state and national power of note. Douglas supported the Kansas Nebraska Act. That act created popular sovereignty, which led to what is now known as “Bleeding Kansas”. This was a result of pro and anti slavery elements in that state trying to affect the vote outcome. A vicious time.
This was followed by a surprising landslide presidential victory in 1852 of Franklin Pierce was only 49 when elected. He was naively “led” by both Stephen A. Douglas and Jefferson Davis, war secretary and as he said, “acting president of the United States”.
During this time the author reminds us of the changing of the guard. Gone are such notables Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, all of whom Lincoln admired.
Lincoln was following very closely Douglas, both in writing as well as when he was speaking. Make no mistake about it, Lincoln was an intellectual giant and it was only a matter of time before the “new and focused” Lincoln would emerge onto the national stage. All of this led to the now famous Lincoln- Douglas debates 1858. Lincoln lost that battle for a senate seat (determined by the state legislature in those days), but it set the stage for his nomination and eventual run for the presidency in 1860.
The Whig party collapsed and eventually many of those former members – including Lincoln – built and grew the Republican Party. If he needed more impetus, add the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act!
I have never read anything Blumenthal wrote until now. I was impressed with the research he did, the references provided, index and bibliography are outstanding.
I will read volume III next, but after a break. Currently reading Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham another “semi-tome”.
August 20, 2018
The second volume of Blumenthal's biography covers Lincoln's "wilderness" years following his departure from Congress and culminating in his role in the founding of the Republican Party. Blumenthal rightly believes that one cannot understand Lincoln's thinking on the issues of the day unless one understands the political environment in which he lived. Consequently, like its predecessor, much of this volume reads more as a political history of the first half of the 1850's rather than as a biography; indeed, there are lengthy chapters in which Lincoln is scarcely mentioned, if at all.
Although at times I got a little bit lost among the weeds of shifting alliances and party identifications which marked this period, a true political cataclysm, Blumenthal's method is effective. I've been reading about this period for 60 years and still came away with fresh understandings.
Blumenthal emphasizes the fact that this was not a period in which Lincoln withdrew from politics and solely practiced law, but one in which he was politically active and was busily honing and refining his positions on slavery and how to most effectively present them. It was no accident that when Lincoln emerged in 1854 to confront Douglas on Kansas-Nebraska, he was fully prepared- eloquent, clear-eyed and relentlessly logical in his attack.
The villain in all this is Stephen Douglas. I don't believe I had fully realized how completely motivated he was by self-interest and the extent of his dangerous demagoguery.
Although at times I got a little bit lost among the weeds of shifting alliances and party identifications which marked this period, a true political cataclysm, Blumenthal's method is effective. I've been reading about this period for 60 years and still came away with fresh understandings.
Blumenthal emphasizes the fact that this was not a period in which Lincoln withdrew from politics and solely practiced law, but one in which he was politically active and was busily honing and refining his positions on slavery and how to most effectively present them. It was no accident that when Lincoln emerged in 1854 to confront Douglas on Kansas-Nebraska, he was fully prepared- eloquent, clear-eyed and relentlessly logical in his attack.
The villain in all this is Stephen Douglas. I don't believe I had fully realized how completely motivated he was by self-interest and the extent of his dangerous demagoguery.
September 7, 2017
For those who believe that the Civil War aka the War of Northern Aggression, aka The War Between The States was, first and foremost, a war fought by the South to preserve state's rights is technically correct except that the only state's right that was truly at issue was the rights of the Southern states to hold people in perpetual bondage.
The issue that destroyed the Whig Party and led eventually to secession was The Fugitive Slave Act and the issue of whether states newly accepted into the union would be slave or free.
Given the recent events at Charlottesville, I thought it important to understand the political machinations that led to Southern secession. Blumenthal does an excellent job of showing how those issues progressed as well as the personalities involved. Some scholars have said the Lincoln was not truly antislavery, citing the fact that he only issued his Emancipation Proclamation after the Battle of Antietam. Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22nd, 1862. It stipulated that if the Southern states did not cease their rebellion by January 1st, 1863, then Proclamation would go into effect.
When the Confederacy did not yield, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863. He held off not because he was ambivalent about slavery, but because his primary objective was to save the Union, something that when he took the oath of office he had sworn to preserve.
The issue that destroyed the Whig Party and led eventually to secession was The Fugitive Slave Act and the issue of whether states newly accepted into the union would be slave or free.
Given the recent events at Charlottesville, I thought it important to understand the political machinations that led to Southern secession. Blumenthal does an excellent job of showing how those issues progressed as well as the personalities involved. Some scholars have said the Lincoln was not truly antislavery, citing the fact that he only issued his Emancipation Proclamation after the Battle of Antietam. Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22nd, 1862. It stipulated that if the Southern states did not cease their rebellion by January 1st, 1863, then Proclamation would go into effect.
When the Confederacy did not yield, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863. He held off not because he was ambivalent about slavery, but because his primary objective was to save the Union, something that when he took the oath of office he had sworn to preserve.
April 28, 2019
I always knew that Abraham Lincoln was Whig when he served as a congressman and a Republican when he became president. I had no idea there were quite so many different polical parties in existence during the turbulent era just before the Civil War.
Sidney Blumenthal seems to have extensive knowledge of the ra and turmoil that slavery and it's role in the expanding United States. At times in this book it seemed that Lincoln himself was not the focus of the story at all. However, it did all come together in the end.
I would say that volume 1 was a more enjoyable read, but probably I learned more about this era reading the second book. If you are interested to know more about the political landscape leading up to the Civil War get his book.
Sidney Blumenthal seems to have extensive knowledge of the ra and turmoil that slavery and it's role in the expanding United States. At times in this book it seemed that Lincoln himself was not the focus of the story at all. However, it did all come together in the end.
I would say that volume 1 was a more enjoyable read, but probably I learned more about this era reading the second book. If you are interested to know more about the political landscape leading up to the Civil War get his book.
March 7, 2020
My main critique of this book is that if you advertise it as a biography, then the majority of the book should be about the subject. Instead, Blumenthal spends most of his time on the historical events whether that’s the battle for the Compromise of 1850 or the Pierce Administration.
My secondary critique seems to be the tortured logic that even though Lincoln was an apostle of Henry Clay, he was always secretly aligned with Seward and Sumner. He’s also really harsh toward Daniel Webster.
My third critique is how Blumenthal makes assumptions that the Compromise of 1850 wasn’t necessary because war broke out 10 years later.
My secondary critique seems to be the tortured logic that even though Lincoln was an apostle of Henry Clay, he was always secretly aligned with Seward and Sumner. He’s also really harsh toward Daniel Webster.
My third critique is how Blumenthal makes assumptions that the Compromise of 1850 wasn’t necessary because war broke out 10 years later.
August 14, 2017
This second volume of Blumenthal's work is a fascinating and detailed walk through one of the most tumultuous periods of American history. Lincoln only shows up in the second half and then not as a major player, but the work shows us the forces that brought Lincoln back into politics and finally into the presidency. My only complaint is that the author skips around in years sometimes and doesn't often give years. A timeline would have helped.
November 24, 2019
2nd Book in set about Abraham Lincoln with more about Lincoln's associates and others of Lincoln's time. This book is not for someone looking for a basic book on Abraham Lincoln, there is very little about him it is more about the other political creatures during the span of 1849 - 1856 to include the little Giant Stephen Douglas. Much about the different political parties to include the wigs and the do nothing party.
October 5, 2022
Lincoln the politician. Written by an Illinoisan who has some familiarity with politics. Blumenthal's writing is dense and fact-full but he also tells a good story and explains political coalitions that divided the nation during the run up to the Civil war in this key Western state. We also see the middle-aged Lincoln, and we really see him come to terms with the slavery issue.
June 15, 2017
Blumenthal has written two terrific chapters in the political life of Lincoln. The stories told are delivered with a comfortable retelling as if we were there, watching Lincoln's evolution unfold before us. I look forward to the (planned) last chapter in this terrific series.
April 2, 2024
I felt like this book was significantly better than the first, probably because it dealt with a more interesting time period, both in Lincoln's life and the life of the country. Incredibly thorough and detailed.
November 14, 2019
Excellent, thorough, scholarly - but, so engaging. Wonderful book.
September 13, 2024
Second of a five-volume biography. A very good, massively researched book, probably too detailed for most people.
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