Jeremy A. Perron's silly attempt to organize his thoughts on all the history books he has read. This is being done for reasons only he can really understand.
Showing posts with label Abraham Lincoln. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abraham Lincoln. Show all posts
A review of LaWanda Cox’s Lincoln and Black Freedom: A Study in Presidential Leadership (1981 original, 1994 my copy)
(Rating 4 of 5)
During the civil rights movement that—ironically—climaxed during
the one hundredth anniversary the Civil War (1961-1965) many scholars began to
challenge President Lincoln’s commitment to freedom.Often these scholars would lack understanding
of civil war politics, use anachronisms, and present the emancipation narrative
as Lincoln vs. the Radicals as opposed to Lincoln having to deal with the
multiple forces, some often stronger than the radicals.In 1981, the year I was born, LaWanda Cox
shattered the revisionist view with this work detailing how Lincoln’s
Reconstruction ideas evolved, and how the cause to equality in the nineteenth
century was blown when John Wilkes Booth made Andrew Johnson the
president.
I decided
to read this book because it is cited so often in other Civil War books that I
have read, most notable in Eric Foner’s Reconstruction.The consequence to reading a book so often
cited was that the first four chapters were just review for me because I have
been exposed to this information so often before.The final chapter was more fascinating a
direct comparison and contrast with the Lincoln and A. Johnson Administrations.
“Lincoln
had recognized the historic challenge.He was prepared to implement, so far as he would find practicable, ‘the
principle that all men are created equal.’The nature of presidential leadership helped shape events, and the
leadership of Andrew Johnson and of Lincoln diverged markedly. Johnson lacked
Lincoln’s political skill, finesse, and flexibility; more importantly, he did
not face in the same direction.Lincoln
would expand freedom for blacks; Johnson was content to have their freedom
contained.” (p.150)
In 1861,
history met man and moment when Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as the President
of the United States, in 1865 history missed when Andrew Johnson succeeded
him.Johnson’s presidency was in every
way a disaster undermining progress and sending the country so far back racially that it would take a hundred years to overcome it. (By 'overcome it' I mean Johnson's regressed progress, not racism). Andrew Johnson is an another
reason to hate John Wilkes Booth.
A review of Ronald C. White Jr.’s A. Lincoln: A Biography (2009)
(Rating 5 of 5)
Written in time for President Lincoln’s bicentennial year,
Ronald White's new Lincoln biography tells the story of the Nation’s
sixteenth president.The book that this
one is most compared to is David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln from
1995.I like both of these works.Donald prepared more information on Lincoln
and the world around him, while White has smother narrative that
is strong enough for someone who reads a great deal of history but not
overwhelming for a newcomer.Both are
good they are just different.A. Lincoln is the story of this most remarkable American, who did not hunt vampires.
One of the
main focuses of this book is how President Lincoln redefined the role of
commander-in-chief.White points out
that even presidents who had military background did not have a large role as
commander-in-chief, and the two wars that were fought after the Constitution
was established (1812 and Mexican-American) Presidents Madison and Polk managed the politics at home while they allowed
their generals to have a free hand running the military aspect war.Lincoln was a different commander-in-chief, he handled both the politics at home and closely oversaw the military aspect as well. Lincoln had a mission for the military and he was
going to see it through.
Lincoln as the President
“Lincoln
quickly learned that his own military leaders were often the greatest obstacles
to military policy.The professional
military leaders, almost all graduates of West Point, were trained for the
battlefield.Used to operating within a
chain of command that did not include political leaders, and certainly not the
president, many did not take kindly to Lincoln’s growing involvement in what
they saw as their field of expertise.As
Lincoln would become more and more a hands-on commander in chief, tensions with
some of his military leaders would grow.
Lincoln
began to insist that he as president was the first and last authority in
setting military policy.Critics railed
that he was expanding the power of the presidency, some going so far as
labeling him a ‘dictator.’Perhaps the
greatest irony, some said, was that thirty years before a young Lincoln had
joined the bitter criticism against ‘King Andrew’ Jackson—calling him a
dictator.Now Lincoln had selected the
old general’s portrait to hand in his office.But it needs to be remembered that Lincoln followed three weak and
ineffectual presidents.The odor of
Buchanan’s indecision in the year leading up to the Civil War still stuck in
the nostrils of Washington politicians, even in Buchanan’s own Democratic
Party.” (p.411)
Lincoln as a more active commander-in-chief
President
Lincoln would dismiss general after general until he finally got the man he
wanted in Ulysses S. Grant.When Lincoln
finally had a general whose philosophy was identical to his own, he let loose
his grip on the day-to-day operations of the army.He still expanded his powers as president in
many ways, most famously, with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln would dump general after general until he found the man he wanted in Grant
One of the
things I like about this book in terms of style is the set-up of the pictures, maps, and
illustrations.I wish publishers would
do this more; the pictures are located within the text not collectively
gathered and stuck in the book in some random separate section.This allows the material to become part of
the narrative instead of some random add-on.
I really
enjoyed this book. A. Lincoln is a good starting point for people who would like to gain
a greater understanding of the man who is arguably the greatest President of
the United States. His story is interesting enough without having to make stuff up in order to bolster it.
(Video is from a preview of the new Lincoln movie coming in November, which I swear I will watch so many times I will be able to say all the lines along with the characters.)
A review of Stephen and Paul Kendrick’s Douglas and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Union (2008)
(Rating 5 of 5)
President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass came from two different walks of life and led very different lives. They were both, as Douglass would later describe it, ‘self-made men’ with Douglass rising out of slavery and Lincoln out of poverty to become leading figures of the nation. Lincoln would become a politician and rise to become the sixteenth president of the United States. Frederick Douglass would become a politician too, but not an office-seeking one. He would be on the outreaches of power doing all he could, in his genius, to fight for the enslaved and for justice for all African-Americans. Stephan and Paul Kendrick, father and son, recreate the epic political battles of the Mid-Nineteenth century United States over slavery and the Constitution.
Both Lincoln and Douglass had to overcome many hurdles in life to get to their destinies. Lincoln was born into extreme poverty. He had a cruel and overbearing father who worked all he could out of him until he was twenty-one. Douglass had been born into slavery. He did not even know who his father was, although he had a strong suspicion that it was the man who, by the law, owned him. Both would over come these obstacles on the road to greatness.
Lincoln managed to educate himself and ‘read law’ in order to join the bar and become a frontier lawyer. He would win election to the state legislature and become a vocal minority leader as a member of the Whig Party. He would serve one mediocre term in the United States House of Representatives. In the 1850s, two failed Senate bids, one against the legendary Stephen Douglas, established Lincoln as one of the leading voices against slavery, the expansion of slavery, and slave power. Although against slavery, he had a strong dislike for the radical Garrisonian Abolitionists, who in his view undermined the Anti-slavery movement by making it unelectable, unappealing, and anarchistic.
(Beardless Lincoln)
Douglass managed to escape to chains of slavery and went to the North, where he dodged slave catchers, educated himself, and was found by William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison himself, recruited Douglass into the movement. As time went on, however, Douglass started to become very critical of the movement that he had joined. The Garrisonian abolitionists were pretty good at getting nothing accomplished; they made a lot of people mad at them but did nothing to really damage slavery. Douglass would leave to start his own movement one that would be more mainstream without being mainstreamed.
(Young Douglass)
“To fully break from Garrison and his philosophies was wrenching, but Douglass had tired of conceding to the South their argument that the United States Constitution was a proslavery document. Further, he now resisted William Lloyd Garrison’s often expressed notion that seceding from the Union was a viable option for northern states. Instead, Douglass came to view the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that ‘all men are created equal’ as the proper lens though which to understand the essential meaning of the Constitution with the additions of the Bill of Rights.” p.44
When Lincoln was elected in 1860, Douglass was disappointed. Lincoln was not really the type of person he wanted as president. Although the most openly anti-slavery president ever elected, Douglass thought Lincoln’s approach was too slow and his willingness to enforce fugitive slave laws too cruel.
(Fredrick Douglass)
However as the war went on Douglass’s view on President Lincoln began to change, first by meeting him and deciding upon that meeting that Lincoln was nothing if not honest. When the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Douglass started recruiting young black men, including his own sons, to fight for the Union cause. Douglass would even collaborate with Lincoln in a plan for Douglass himself to go down to the South personally and try to start up a slave rebellion, but the war ended before that became necessary.
(Lincoln at work)
“Douglass had clearly made quite an impression on the president. It was now Lincoln himself prompting a second meeting. In thinking about the ease and evident lack of prejudice that marked his meetings with Lincoln, Douglass maintained that this connection was forged in their both being self-made men. Though it might be audacious to compare a president’s early days with his own, Douglass was well aware of the grinding poverty of Lincoln’s childhood, and he later pondered that this commonality was a source of their ease with one another. Douglass concluded, ‘I account partially for his kindness to me because of the similarity with which I had fought my way up, we both starting at the low rung of the ladder.’ So when receiving the invitation, Douglass resolved to go ‘most gladly.’”
(Lincoln on the field)
After the war was over, Lincoln would, though some backroom strong-arming, get the eventual Thirteenth Amendment though the Congress of the United States. President Lincoln would not live to see it though; John Wilkes Booth took his life on April 14, 1865. Although he and Lincoln had their differences, Douglass would never have it so good with a president again*. Lincoln’s immediate successor was more of villain to his cause than an ally. Douglass would spend the rest of his life fighting for justice and civil rights. He would live until 1895, fighting forever to the end.
(Douglass from his senior years)
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested to anyone interested in U.S. history, the Civil War, and centuries-long struggle for civil rights. This book captures the essence of two incredible leaders who lived and lead in incredible times.
*Although, he did have a positive opinion of President Grant.
{Video is from a biography channel preview on the life of Fredrick Douglass}
A review of Michael Knox Beran’s Forge of Empires—1861-1871—Three Revolutionary Statesmen and the World They Made (2007)
(Rating 5 of 5)
Once on a Star Trek documentary I heard Leonard Nimoy discuss an old Chinese curse, ‘may you live in interesting times.’ In that documentary, Nimoy is referring to the 1960s. However, this book talks about times that may have been far more interesting, the 1860s. Often, we in the United States are so obsessed and fascinated with ourselves that we forget the rest of the world exists. Which is why are sports champions are always titled the ‘World Champions’ despite the fact that they are just playing in the United States*. I, myself, am certainly guilty of this. I often mark book reviews on historical events outside the United States with the labels ‘World History’ and ‘Western Civilization’ and inside the United States is labeled just ‘U.S. History.’ The U.S. Civil War has been a source of fascination for us ever since it ended, but often we ignore the wider world that our conflict played out. Moreover, we should not ignore it, for foreign affairs is a big part of why that conflict played out the way it did.
David Donald’s Lincoln played out the life of one man, Doris Goodwin’s book showed an administration, but Michael Beran’s book gives us the world that was. The focus is on the three legendary statesmen: Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States; Otto Von Bismarck, Prime Minster of Prussia and then Chancellor of Germany; and Tsar Alexander II, Emperor of Russia. Lincoln would hold his nation together that was being torn apart by the Civil War and would succeed in eradicating slavery from the Union. Bismarck would unify his county into a single nation, and Tsar Alexander sought to modernize his nation by liberating his nation’s serfs and providing for a constitutional monarchy.
(President Abraham Lincoln)
(Otto Von Bismarck)
(Tsar Alexander II)
Of the three leaders, only Lincoln would succeed in every way possible. Bismarck would unify Germany but he was always dependent on the patronage of his sovereign for unlike Lincoln, who served in a Republic, Bismarck served a King who he transformed into an Emperor. Bismarck would live to see a new Emperor come to the throne had he built and begin a process to ruin it all. Tsar Alexander was an emperor already, and in theory absolute. Unfortunately, after the centuries of serfdom, transforming the entire nation’s population from serfs to citizens would take some doing and when undermined by both conservative and radical elements it would become impossible.
Tsar Alexander was just following example that other monarchs, and Bismarck, were making with ‘Tory Democracy.’ For the monarchs and aristocrats of the mid-nineteenth century were a far more cleaver breed then their late eighteenth century counterparts. They would embrace popular reform as way of maintaining their hold on power.
“The free-state men were every day becoming more impatient with his rule. He imposed a censorship on the press; but this, he knew, was a shopworn tactic, and only strengthened the opposition. He must try something else. He had been intrigued by the way in which Europe’s craftiest politicians used (or proposed to use) the power of the lower orders against the liberal middle—against the bourgeois and professional classes. In France, Napoleon III organized mass plebiscites to ratify his power. In England, Benjamin Disraeli envisioned a union between the common people and the aristocracy, and alliance which Winston Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was later to christen ‘Tory Democracy.’ Others called it ‘neofeudal paternalism’ or ‘English Tory Socialism.’
It was and ingenious strategy. Use democratic paternalism to subvert the institutions of freedom. Today, when democracy and liberty are practically synonymous, such a policy seems paradoxical. But it did not seem so in the nineteenth century. In England and the United States, the rule of law, bills of rights, independent judiciaries, and legislative control of the purse and the army developed before the advent of universal suffrage. When, during the nineteenth century, democracy grew up in England and America, the institutions of the free state were relatively stable; the broader franchise did not destroy free constitutions, it made them stronger. But in countries without such stable constitutions, it made them stronger. But in countries without such stable constitutions, unscrupulous leaders used democratic instruments—plebiscites and manhood suffrage—to subvert fledgling institutions of freedom.” p.175
This book also connects the dots on how these events all tied into each other. Generally, I and most other historians both professionals, and us amateurs, are aware of the British and French support for the Confederacy during the U.S Civil War. However, I do not believe that most are equally aware of the Prussian and Russian support for the Union. Bismarck could not support the South since he was trying to unify his own nation, and Alexander equally supported the Union in his outright refusal even to consider recognizing the Confederacy. This book also gives detail on how the United States, angry at the French for their support of the Confederacy, was able to play a role in the Franco-Prussian War.
“The advice of Philip Sheridan, General Grant’s cavalry master, made a deep impression upon him. Sheridan had come to the Prussian camp as an observer. He urged the Germans to embrace the policy of total war to which Lincoln and Grant had been driven to during the Civil War. ‘The proper strategy,’ Sheridan told Bismarck over dinner at Rheims, ‘consists in the first place of inflicting as telling blows as possible on the enemy’s army, and then in causing the inhabitants so much suffering that they must long for peace, and force their Government to demand it. The people must be left with nothing but their eyes to weep with over the war…’ ‘You know how to hit an enemy as no other army does, but you have not learned how to annihilate him. One must see more smoke of burning villages, otherwise you will not finish the French.’” (p.353)
(General Philip Sheridan)
This book opens a window into another time, one that sees all these dramatic events and actors great and small take part. The History Channel should a documentary based on it. For, I found this book more entertaining than a movie. This book has a brilliant narrative and I highly recommend to anyone.
*Now granted the amount of foreign player in our pro leagues might give those titles more legitimacy but we have always had those titles.
{Video was produced by the History Channel special Russia Land of the Tsars}
A review of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005)
(Rating 5 of 5)
I was actually reading this book during the 2008 presidential primaries; I was a supporter of then-Senator Barack Obama. I could not help but notice some of the similarities of a tall skinny lawyer with little Washington experience running against a more seasoned senator from New York in Hilary Clinton. Later as the future president won the nomination, it turned out that he had read this book as well and had mentioned it to the press. When he was elected over John McCain in November, he would take Senator Clinton on as his new secretary of state.
David Herbert Donald in his famous Lincoln biography gave us an intimate look into Abraham Lincoln the man. In this Pulitzer Prize winning work, Goodwin elegantly describes the inner working of the Lincoln Administration. The Lincoln presidency was the most accomplished on record. The Polk administration was the only presidency that accomplished all that it set out to do at the start, but Lincoln’s accomplished far more than even they could have dreamed in the beginning. Not only would the nation be saved from being torn in half but also slavery itself would be eradicated in all legal form from the nation forever.
Although Goodwin’s work focuses mostly on the team and its players, she also discusses how their families also played an important part. The team was as follows:
· Abraham Lincoln, the President. The clear but not undisputed leader of the group, the president came out of nowhere to capture the Republican Nomination from men far greater experience. Only a former one-term congressman, Lincoln managed to win the nomination and ultimately the presidency. He would assemble and lead his Cabinet through the darkest times in our nation’s history.
· William H. Seward, Secretary of State. Lincoln’s number two, who was considered the front-runner going into 1860 Republican convention. Seward was the Senator and former Governor of the State of New York. Senator Seward had the most delegates going into the convention, but lost out to Lincoln. This was a good thing considering Seward’s bright idea to stop the Civil War was to declare war on England. Although that bullet was dodged, he did serve as an able to Secretary of State to President Lincoln and the nation.
· Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Chase was Lincoln’s chief rival in the cabinet but an effective Secretary of the Treasury. Chase had been the sitting Governor and former Senator of the State of Ohio going into the convention. He was a devote Christian, a die-hard abolitionist, and an ambitious politician. Although an ambitious politician, he was not as skilled as Lincoln.
· Edward Bates, Attorney General. A conservative family man who is the senior statesman of Lincoln’s team of rivals, he would be the person involved with many of the legal aspects of the administration. He and Lincoln were the representatives of the old Whig party in the cabinet.
· Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War. Taking over for the most incompetent Simon Cameron, Stanton was the ‘tough guy’ of the administration, considering most popular politicians, as a habit, have a tough time saying ‘no’—Lincoln would make fun of himself for this—Stanton would be that back bone that could tell people things they did not want to hear.
“In fact, as John Nicolay later wrote, Lincoln’s ‘first decision was one of great courage and self-reliance.’ Each of his rivals was ‘sure to feel that the wrong man had been nominated.’ A less confident man might have surrounded himself with personal supporters who would never question his authority. James Buchanan, for example, had deliberately chosen men who thought as he did. Buchanan believed, Allan Nevins writes, that a president ‘who tried to conciliate opposing elements by placing determined agents of each in his official family would find that he had simply strengthened discord, and had depended party divisions.’ While it was possible that his team of rivals would devour one another, Lincoln determined that ‘he must risk the dangers of faction to overcome the dangers of rebellion.” p.318-9
In addition, to the ‘team’ itself Goodwin also discusses their family life and some of the people who helped drive them. Some of these were:
· Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady. Born to a Southern family, the election of 1860 could have been described as a battle between all of her old boyfriends. Mrs. Lincoln is vilified often by the Northern press as being to pro-Southern, while her husband leads a war that her brothers are fighting in, but on the other side.
· Frances Seward, wife of Secretary Seward. Mrs. Seward often acted as the voice of moral reason in advising her husband. She hated slavery even more then him.
· Kate Chase, daughter of Secretary Chase. Miss Chase was every bit as ambitious as her father. Since her father is widowed and not looking to remarry, she saw herself playing the role of First Lady during her father’s presidency. She would become Mrs. Lincoln’s main rival in the Washington social circles.
“Observing Mary as she departed for her regular round of hospital visits, William Stoddard wondered why she didn’t publicize her efforts. ‘If she were worldly wise she would carry newspaper correspondents, from tow to five, of both sexes, every time she went, and she would have them take shorthand notes of what she says to the sick soldiers and of what the sick soldiers say to her.’ This, more than anything, he surmised, would ‘sweeten the contents of my many journals’ that had frequently derided the first lady’s receptions and redecorating projects. The New York Independent had been particularly relentless in its attacks on Mary. ‘While her sister-women scraped lint, sewed bandages, and put on nurses’ caps,’ Mary Clemmer Ames wrote, ‘the wife of its President spent her time in rolling to and fro between Washington and New York, intent on extravagant purchases for herself and the White House.’” p.458
Team of Rivals is history that reads like a novel. It is an exiting book about a terrible time in our nation’s history. If someone knew nothing about the Civil War, he or she would still find this book enjoyable.
{Even though 'the West Wing' was not built yet that really cool video comes from Manny535 on Youtube}
SO WE HAVE THE TRAILER!
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And what a trailer it is! It is enough to make me post on this
blog for the first time since July 2016. I originally started this blog
when t...