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Doris Goodwin rightfully deserves any praise of this multi-biographical and multi-dimensional single volume on the men and women who were so intertwined with one another as the country tried to save itself from "irrepressible conflict."
The lives of William Henry Seward, Edward Bates, Abraham Lincoln, and Salmon Chase occupy much of the work up to where I am in the book now (page 194). However, other people critical in these people's lives are properly and inexplicably interwoven such as Frances Seward, Seward's wife who was more anti-slavery than her husband; Mary Lincoln, whom readers will find a different light shed on the often maligned wife of our sixteenth president; Kate Chase, who was the only beacon of light to her stoic father and of course who during the war would shake up Washington City. Key players in Lincoln's life such as Lymann Trumbull and the at first very antagonist Edwin Stanton leap from the pages as though they were next to you.
People thus not contacted so early in this work are Simon Cameron, Gideon Welles, Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson, and Caleb Smith just to name a few. The lack of their stories in this early section of the book is an asset.
Mrs. Goodwin has correctly interwoven these men's lives into the splintering political parties (Democrats and Whigs) and the rise of new political parties (Know-Nothing/American and Republican). The rise of immigrants, the push for Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War, the Compromise of 1820 and 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and its revised brother in 1850 all give immense insight into why these men (and in many cases their often forgotten wives who pushed them) acted the way in which they did.
This work is critically necessary to understanding these men but also just how the country moved towards war. Readers who hold on to the "moonlight and magnolia" mythology about the Upper South not being so tied with slavery as to fight a war about it will be surprised to find the governor of North Carolina is also quoted in 1854 as having said that the South (which would include North Carolina) was ready to fight a war over the issue of slavery. Excerpts from Richmond and Petersburg antebellum newspapers which praised Senator Preston Brooks for beating Senator Charles Sumner in 1856 are featured as well. Of course the Deep South is not neglected either as she relies upon Robert Toombs of Georgia and John Calhoun of South Carolina, both of whom noted the South's committment to slavery and that denial of slaves into the new territories may very well mean the start of a new nation in which the South would be free of the abolitionists.
A limited preview is available on Google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=ONh...BxG6aMYY-wihqM
The lives of William Henry Seward, Edward Bates, Abraham Lincoln, and Salmon Chase occupy much of the work up to where I am in the book now (page 194). However, other people critical in these people's lives are properly and inexplicably interwoven such as Frances Seward, Seward's wife who was more anti-slavery than her husband; Mary Lincoln, whom readers will find a different light shed on the often maligned wife of our sixteenth president; Kate Chase, who was the only beacon of light to her stoic father and of course who during the war would shake up Washington City. Key players in Lincoln's life such as Lymann Trumbull and the at first very antagonist Edwin Stanton leap from the pages as though they were next to you.
People thus not contacted so early in this work are Simon Cameron, Gideon Welles, Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson, and Caleb Smith just to name a few. The lack of their stories in this early section of the book is an asset.
Mrs. Goodwin has correctly interwoven these men's lives into the splintering political parties (Democrats and Whigs) and the rise of new political parties (Know-Nothing/American and Republican). The rise of immigrants, the push for Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War, the Compromise of 1820 and 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and its revised brother in 1850 all give immense insight into why these men (and in many cases their often forgotten wives who pushed them) acted the way in which they did.
This work is critically necessary to understanding these men but also just how the country moved towards war. Readers who hold on to the "moonlight and magnolia" mythology about the Upper South not being so tied with slavery as to fight a war about it will be surprised to find the governor of North Carolina is also quoted in 1854 as having said that the South (which would include North Carolina) was ready to fight a war over the issue of slavery. Excerpts from Richmond and Petersburg antebellum newspapers which praised Senator Preston Brooks for beating Senator Charles Sumner in 1856 are featured as well. Of course the Deep South is not neglected either as she relies upon Robert Toombs of Georgia and John Calhoun of South Carolina, both of whom noted the South's committment to slavery and that denial of slaves into the new territories may very well mean the start of a new nation in which the South would be free of the abolitionists.
A limited preview is available on Google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=ONh...BxG6aMYY-wihqM
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