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All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860
In All the Powers of Earth , Lincoln's incredible ascent to power in a world of chaos is newly revealed through the great biographer's extraordinary research and literary style.
After a period of depression that he would ever find his way to greatness, Lincoln takes on the most powerful demagogue in the country, Stephen Douglas, in the debates for a senate seat. He sidelines the frontrunner William Seward, a former governor and senator for New York, to cinch the new Republican Party’s nomination.
All the Powers of Earth is the political story of all time. Lincoln achieves the presidency by force of strategy, of political savvy and determination. This is Abraham Lincoln, who indisputably becomes the greatest president and moral leader in the nation’s history. But he must first build a new political party, brilliantly state the anti-slavery case and overcome shattering defeat to win the presidency. In the years of civil war to follow, he will show mightily that the nation was right to bet on him. He was its preserver, a politician of moral integrity.
All the Powers of Earth cements Sidney Blumenthal as the definitive Lincoln biographer.
After a period of depression that he would ever find his way to greatness, Lincoln takes on the most powerful demagogue in the country, Stephen Douglas, in the debates for a senate seat. He sidelines the frontrunner William Seward, a former governor and senator for New York, to cinch the new Republican Party’s nomination.
All the Powers of Earth is the political story of all time. Lincoln achieves the presidency by force of strategy, of political savvy and determination. This is Abraham Lincoln, who indisputably becomes the greatest president and moral leader in the nation’s history. But he must first build a new political party, brilliantly state the anti-slavery case and overcome shattering defeat to win the presidency. In the years of civil war to follow, he will show mightily that the nation was right to bet on him. He was its preserver, a politician of moral integrity.
All the Powers of Earth cements Sidney Blumenthal as the definitive Lincoln biographer.
784 pages, Hardcover
First published September 3, 2019
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October 12, 2022
I have been trying very, very hard to get in sync with this series, as so many others have managed to do, based on the reviews I’ve seen. Volume one felt like a letdown to me, while I was more generous in my assessment of volume two, as I thought I was beginning to get a better idea of where Blumenthal was going with all of this. Volume three, however, left me feeling like my assessment of the previous volume might have been aspirational, or wishful thinking, like I was trying to will myself into being wowed by the series - or perhaps trying to will Blumenthal into wowing me with what he planned to offer next.
The issue is whether one can accept and appreciate the series for what it is, rather than judge it based on what one might wish it to be, while continually wondering why it isn’t really what it purports to be. Most of the reviews of the first three books in this now-proposed five-volume series seem to fall into one of two camps - "Yes, there's not much Lincoln in it, but it's good anyway" and "It's quite good, but it would be better if it was actually more about Lincoln." While the title of the series would seem to suggest otherwise, it’s clear that Blumenthal is aiming to tell a larger, more sweeping political story of the era that’s bigger than just a biography of Lincoln. Yet I can’t help but find myself squarely in the latter camp of “it would be better if it was actually more about Lincoln.”
Things don’t get off to a great start when the very first page declares that "the Compromise of 1850 admitted Texas as a slave state," which is the first of numerous careless errors that jumped out even to an amateur like me. Unlike volume two, which picked up seamlessly from volume one, this volume begins by recapping and recasting earlier events, as though Blumenthal wanted volume three to be able to stand on its own for anyone jumping into it mid-series.
The early chapters look at the intensifying debates over slavery through a political lens, showing how Southern politicians defended the institution in order to preserve their influence, while antislavery politicians condemned "slavery as a system of political power." From the brutal caning of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate, to John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Blumenthal describes numerous events that inflamed passions and brought the country nearer to a breaking point.
And Lincoln, as in the earlier volumes, is usually hovering somewhere in the background, making occasional appearances until he eventually assumes a more prominent role much later in the book.
For most of the book, though, Stephen Douglas is the central and most compelling figure. As the dark to Lincoln’s light, the unprincipled opportunist to Lincoln’s moral advocate, the yin to Lincoln’s yang, Blumenthal seems more interested in how Douglas and the Democrats ultimately lost the slavery debate and the 1860 presidential contest, than he is in exploring how Lincoln won it. There are perceptive observations about Lincoln’s role in the creation of the Republican party, and his political skill in coalescing disparate forces into a unified party capable of taking on the divided Democrats. And Lincoln is portrayed as particularly shrewd in launching "a daring new process - a public campaign for Senator" at a time when Senators were not elected by the public, by debating Douglas in 1858 - even as we’re reminded that he didn’t do this alone, as he had advisers and supporters who “felt he needed to be handled,” as well he sometimes did.
But in a 600+ page book covering a four-year period that marked the most pivotal time in Lincoln’s political ascendency, the debates are dispensed with in a single, somewhat perfunctory chapter. Blumenthal provides a political analysis of how the debates played out, but his telling is largely lacking an analysis of the debates’ content. For example, Lincoln's troublesome remarks claiming he had "no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two…" are transcribed without comment, or any attempt to analyze his true beliefs, his motives or his strategy in saying so.
In the end, the debates are treated less as an opportunity to explore Lincoln’s political growth and maturity than they are as a mere prologue to something more - a national campaign by proxy, that culminated in the 1860 Lincoln-Douglas rematch for president. While the political, rather than contextual, analysis of the Lincoln-Douglas debates seemed somewhat lacking, the same approach is more effective in analyzing Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech that made him a serious presidential contender. Most focus on the speech’s antislavery arguments, but Blumenthal zeroes in on the speech as a political rallying cry - an appeal against compromise and for sticking with one’s political convictions.
As the volume nears its conclusion, the presidential contenders become known, the conventions are held, the election takes place. We learn of the wheeling and dealing that helped earn Lincoln the Republican nomination, ahead of what’s portrayed as him essentially coasting to victory in the general election as the Democratic party imploded. But Blumenthal doesn’t fully explore or attempt to explain Lincoln’s prescient leadership versus his somewhat reactive ability to hitch his ambition to issues and events as they emerged, his burning ambition versus his initial reticence to run for president, and whether that reticence was real or just strategic false modesty.
What Blumenthal does well is set the scene. He tells the stories of the political players of the time, who shaped the political landscape that allowed Lincoln to emerge. In doing so, he lays the foundation for what is to come, as we wait for Lincoln to assume his rightful role as this series’ central focus. But Blumenthal has been setting the scene now for 1500+ pages over three volumes. It feels to me like the longest windup ever, with payoffs that are yet to come. Perhaps the payoff will begin to become clear in the next volume, but I’ve said that twice before. The completist in me will likely read volumes four and five when they eventually come out. But, in finding this series more frustrating than illuminating so far, I can’t say that I’ll be the first in line to get them.
The issue is whether one can accept and appreciate the series for what it is, rather than judge it based on what one might wish it to be, while continually wondering why it isn’t really what it purports to be. Most of the reviews of the first three books in this now-proposed five-volume series seem to fall into one of two camps - "Yes, there's not much Lincoln in it, but it's good anyway" and "It's quite good, but it would be better if it was actually more about Lincoln." While the title of the series would seem to suggest otherwise, it’s clear that Blumenthal is aiming to tell a larger, more sweeping political story of the era that’s bigger than just a biography of Lincoln. Yet I can’t help but find myself squarely in the latter camp of “it would be better if it was actually more about Lincoln.”
Things don’t get off to a great start when the very first page declares that "the Compromise of 1850 admitted Texas as a slave state," which is the first of numerous careless errors that jumped out even to an amateur like me. Unlike volume two, which picked up seamlessly from volume one, this volume begins by recapping and recasting earlier events, as though Blumenthal wanted volume three to be able to stand on its own for anyone jumping into it mid-series.
The early chapters look at the intensifying debates over slavery through a political lens, showing how Southern politicians defended the institution in order to preserve their influence, while antislavery politicians condemned "slavery as a system of political power." From the brutal caning of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate, to John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Blumenthal describes numerous events that inflamed passions and brought the country nearer to a breaking point.
And Lincoln, as in the earlier volumes, is usually hovering somewhere in the background, making occasional appearances until he eventually assumes a more prominent role much later in the book.
For most of the book, though, Stephen Douglas is the central and most compelling figure. As the dark to Lincoln’s light, the unprincipled opportunist to Lincoln’s moral advocate, the yin to Lincoln’s yang, Blumenthal seems more interested in how Douglas and the Democrats ultimately lost the slavery debate and the 1860 presidential contest, than he is in exploring how Lincoln won it. There are perceptive observations about Lincoln’s role in the creation of the Republican party, and his political skill in coalescing disparate forces into a unified party capable of taking on the divided Democrats. And Lincoln is portrayed as particularly shrewd in launching "a daring new process - a public campaign for Senator" at a time when Senators were not elected by the public, by debating Douglas in 1858 - even as we’re reminded that he didn’t do this alone, as he had advisers and supporters who “felt he needed to be handled,” as well he sometimes did.
But in a 600+ page book covering a four-year period that marked the most pivotal time in Lincoln’s political ascendency, the debates are dispensed with in a single, somewhat perfunctory chapter. Blumenthal provides a political analysis of how the debates played out, but his telling is largely lacking an analysis of the debates’ content. For example, Lincoln's troublesome remarks claiming he had "no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two…" are transcribed without comment, or any attempt to analyze his true beliefs, his motives or his strategy in saying so.
In the end, the debates are treated less as an opportunity to explore Lincoln’s political growth and maturity than they are as a mere prologue to something more - a national campaign by proxy, that culminated in the 1860 Lincoln-Douglas rematch for president. While the political, rather than contextual, analysis of the Lincoln-Douglas debates seemed somewhat lacking, the same approach is more effective in analyzing Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech that made him a serious presidential contender. Most focus on the speech’s antislavery arguments, but Blumenthal zeroes in on the speech as a political rallying cry - an appeal against compromise and for sticking with one’s political convictions.
As the volume nears its conclusion, the presidential contenders become known, the conventions are held, the election takes place. We learn of the wheeling and dealing that helped earn Lincoln the Republican nomination, ahead of what’s portrayed as him essentially coasting to victory in the general election as the Democratic party imploded. But Blumenthal doesn’t fully explore or attempt to explain Lincoln’s prescient leadership versus his somewhat reactive ability to hitch his ambition to issues and events as they emerged, his burning ambition versus his initial reticence to run for president, and whether that reticence was real or just strategic false modesty.
What Blumenthal does well is set the scene. He tells the stories of the political players of the time, who shaped the political landscape that allowed Lincoln to emerge. In doing so, he lays the foundation for what is to come, as we wait for Lincoln to assume his rightful role as this series’ central focus. But Blumenthal has been setting the scene now for 1500+ pages over three volumes. It feels to me like the longest windup ever, with payoffs that are yet to come. Perhaps the payoff will begin to become clear in the next volume, but I’ve said that twice before. The completist in me will likely read volumes four and five when they eventually come out. But, in finding this series more frustrating than illuminating so far, I can’t say that I’ll be the first in line to get them.
November 12, 2023
Volume III of Sidney Blumenthal's series that is ostensibly about Abraham Lincoln picks up with the lead-up to the 1856 presidential election. The first quarter of the book focuses on what was going on around America during that year. That election saw James Buchanan elected, thereby replacing a feckless President (Franklin Pierce) with a bumbling one. It also saw the horrible caning of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner at his Senate desk, and the continuing violent fallout over whether or not the territory of Kansas would become a slave state or a free state.
Despite Lincoln being on the cover of this book, and the subtitle being what it is, Stephen A. Douglas comes across as the major player, especially in this section. Douglas, Senator from Illinois, is incredibly ambitious, and was too smart for his own good with his "popular sovereignty" proposal for Kansas. Douglas was proslavery, and owned slaves himself at a Mississippi plantation. The Democratic Party back then was also proslavery, even though the Party was starting to break apart due to sectional differences largely over slavery. Douglas was able to create and then propel through Congress the infamous Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 that would allow Kansas to be admitted as a slave state, in effect repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which would have forbidden that. But Douglas tried to be too clever, and instead of just admitting Kansas as a slave state, which would have angered Northerners, he said it could be either slave or free based on what the voters decided there. Douglas only did this because he was sure that, with Southerners flocking to the new territory, the majority would vote for slavery.
But that isn't what happened, as many free-soil settlers also emigrated to Kansas, and even though they were far from wanting equal rights for blacks, they were opposed to slavery's extension and did not want to live amongst the barbarous practice. Even a successive series of proslavery territorial Governors appointed by Pierce and Buchanan all ended up going against the interests of the slavery advocates due to their illegal and fraudulent attempts to make the Kansas Constitution one that allowed slavery. Douglas had miscalculated, and in more ways than one, as the agitation over this issue served as the catalyst to bring Lincoln back from the political dead. After a single term in Congress, Lincoln had went back to his law practice and Springfield and seemed more or less resigned to remaining there. But the Kansas issue was so morally wrong that he felt compelled to emerge from the woodwork and start speaking out against it.
Blumenthal is especially good at describing both the 1856 and 1860 Presidential elections. He goes through the nominating process for both the newly-formed Republican Party, and then the Democratic Party. In 1856 the Know Nothing Party is added to the fray, with former President Millard Fillmore foolishly running for his old job. In 1860, the Democrats literally break apart as Douglas gets the formal nomination, but most of the Southern states bolted and ran their own ticket, and then there was a Constitutional Unionist Party as well that did well in the border states. Blumenthal goes through how Buchanan was chosen in 1856, and what a subsequent disaster he became as President. On paper he had an excellent resume, with a lifetime of public service in important offices. But in reality, he was a vain, petty, pompous Northern man with Southern sympathies. As both Fillmore and Pierce did before him, Buchanan bent over backwards to placate the South and its vehemence towards not only keeping slavery intact where it already existed but also expanding it as much as possible.
Blumenthal also has a few chapters on John Brown, the antislavery zealot who attempted to take over an arsenal at Harpers Ferry, VA. Brown was a lunatic, despite being for a good cause (the elimination of slavery). Unfortunately, he went about his goal by shedding a lot of blood in Kansas and then Virginia. Far from converting anyone to his cause, he instead made it more difficult on Republicans such as Lincoln and William Seward to disavow Brown's actions while remaining in accord with Brown's ultimate goal.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 are covered extensively, with Blumenthal giving equal time to both men in their quest for a Senate seat. Douglas wanted to be re-elected, and he was, while Lincoln was trying to return to public office. Blumenthal shows how Lincoln won the war while losing the battle, as it was going to be somewhat of an uphill climb for him to be able to dislodge Douglas. Back then Senators were still elected by state legislatures, and Illinois was more Democratic even though Republicans were beginning to make significant gains. Lincoln succeeded in cornering Douglas on his popular sovereignty proposal - eventually forcing Douglas to admit that if a state or territory's voters voted against slavery, then the state would have to be a free state. This angered most of Douglas' Southern backers, and played a large role in the dismemberment of the South from the regular Democratic Party in 1860.
One theme that ran throughout this book is that, when all was said and done, the leaders of the South actually wanted Lincoln to be elected President. Why? Because they could use Lincoln as their excuse to secede, and form their own slaveholding nation. Gradually throughout the 1850s Southerners reached a point where they were no longer going to be satisfied with anything other than the full spread of slavery. Despite a succession of Presidents who coddled them and gave them what they wanted, despite Lincoln proclaiming that he would not touch slavery where it already existed, despite many in the North still being willing to tolerate it in the South, despite the horrible Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court that declared that blacks were not citizens and that free states had to obey the odious Fugitive Slave Law, the South still wanted more. Electing Douglas would not give them that, because everyone knew that Douglas was for slavery and would not harm the South. But Lincoln was on record as hard against slavery. So even though he did not directly threaten the South, his very presence at the White House would implicitly threaten it.
I have to note that I enjoyed this book, though not quite as much as the first two in this series. I felt that the writing was just a little off in many spots; the sentence structure sometimes seemed amiss, as if it needed a good editor to scrub it. For instance, on Page 326 he makes mention of Buchanan's "wife". Well, that would be fine except that Buchanan never married; he was a lifelong bachelor. How does Blumenthal make that error, and why wasn't it caught before publication? There were a few other times where I came across something that seemed a bit dubious as to factualness.
Also an issue for me was the misleading title and depiction of the book: since it advertises itself as supposedly being about Lincoln, it should really be about Lincoln. Douglas gets more attention here than Lincoln does. Lincoln is in roughly half of the book. While context is key, and Blumenthal does a superb job in setting that context, it just goes on for too long. I was more understanding of that in the first two volumes, because with Lincoln's youth there is only going to be so much riveting action to go around, and then he has a single term in Congress. But by this point in his life, he has become a regional figure for sure, while also venturing out onto the national stage. Lincoln's family life is also completely missing from these pages. Yes, I know it is a "political life" as billed. Yet, it felt to me that Blumenthal at times lost focus of Lincoln since he was so concerned with the many admittedly serious issues going on in the United States at that time. This is a good book, but if you are looking for a focus mainly or solely on Lincoln, look elsewhere.
Grade: B+
Despite Lincoln being on the cover of this book, and the subtitle being what it is, Stephen A. Douglas comes across as the major player, especially in this section. Douglas, Senator from Illinois, is incredibly ambitious, and was too smart for his own good with his "popular sovereignty" proposal for Kansas. Douglas was proslavery, and owned slaves himself at a Mississippi plantation. The Democratic Party back then was also proslavery, even though the Party was starting to break apart due to sectional differences largely over slavery. Douglas was able to create and then propel through Congress the infamous Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 that would allow Kansas to be admitted as a slave state, in effect repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which would have forbidden that. But Douglas tried to be too clever, and instead of just admitting Kansas as a slave state, which would have angered Northerners, he said it could be either slave or free based on what the voters decided there. Douglas only did this because he was sure that, with Southerners flocking to the new territory, the majority would vote for slavery.
But that isn't what happened, as many free-soil settlers also emigrated to Kansas, and even though they were far from wanting equal rights for blacks, they were opposed to slavery's extension and did not want to live amongst the barbarous practice. Even a successive series of proslavery territorial Governors appointed by Pierce and Buchanan all ended up going against the interests of the slavery advocates due to their illegal and fraudulent attempts to make the Kansas Constitution one that allowed slavery. Douglas had miscalculated, and in more ways than one, as the agitation over this issue served as the catalyst to bring Lincoln back from the political dead. After a single term in Congress, Lincoln had went back to his law practice and Springfield and seemed more or less resigned to remaining there. But the Kansas issue was so morally wrong that he felt compelled to emerge from the woodwork and start speaking out against it.
Blumenthal is especially good at describing both the 1856 and 1860 Presidential elections. He goes through the nominating process for both the newly-formed Republican Party, and then the Democratic Party. In 1856 the Know Nothing Party is added to the fray, with former President Millard Fillmore foolishly running for his old job. In 1860, the Democrats literally break apart as Douglas gets the formal nomination, but most of the Southern states bolted and ran their own ticket, and then there was a Constitutional Unionist Party as well that did well in the border states. Blumenthal goes through how Buchanan was chosen in 1856, and what a subsequent disaster he became as President. On paper he had an excellent resume, with a lifetime of public service in important offices. But in reality, he was a vain, petty, pompous Northern man with Southern sympathies. As both Fillmore and Pierce did before him, Buchanan bent over backwards to placate the South and its vehemence towards not only keeping slavery intact where it already existed but also expanding it as much as possible.
Blumenthal also has a few chapters on John Brown, the antislavery zealot who attempted to take over an arsenal at Harpers Ferry, VA. Brown was a lunatic, despite being for a good cause (the elimination of slavery). Unfortunately, he went about his goal by shedding a lot of blood in Kansas and then Virginia. Far from converting anyone to his cause, he instead made it more difficult on Republicans such as Lincoln and William Seward to disavow Brown's actions while remaining in accord with Brown's ultimate goal.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 are covered extensively, with Blumenthal giving equal time to both men in their quest for a Senate seat. Douglas wanted to be re-elected, and he was, while Lincoln was trying to return to public office. Blumenthal shows how Lincoln won the war while losing the battle, as it was going to be somewhat of an uphill climb for him to be able to dislodge Douglas. Back then Senators were still elected by state legislatures, and Illinois was more Democratic even though Republicans were beginning to make significant gains. Lincoln succeeded in cornering Douglas on his popular sovereignty proposal - eventually forcing Douglas to admit that if a state or territory's voters voted against slavery, then the state would have to be a free state. This angered most of Douglas' Southern backers, and played a large role in the dismemberment of the South from the regular Democratic Party in 1860.
One theme that ran throughout this book is that, when all was said and done, the leaders of the South actually wanted Lincoln to be elected President. Why? Because they could use Lincoln as their excuse to secede, and form their own slaveholding nation. Gradually throughout the 1850s Southerners reached a point where they were no longer going to be satisfied with anything other than the full spread of slavery. Despite a succession of Presidents who coddled them and gave them what they wanted, despite Lincoln proclaiming that he would not touch slavery where it already existed, despite many in the North still being willing to tolerate it in the South, despite the horrible Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court that declared that blacks were not citizens and that free states had to obey the odious Fugitive Slave Law, the South still wanted more. Electing Douglas would not give them that, because everyone knew that Douglas was for slavery and would not harm the South. But Lincoln was on record as hard against slavery. So even though he did not directly threaten the South, his very presence at the White House would implicitly threaten it.
I have to note that I enjoyed this book, though not quite as much as the first two in this series. I felt that the writing was just a little off in many spots; the sentence structure sometimes seemed amiss, as if it needed a good editor to scrub it. For instance, on Page 326 he makes mention of Buchanan's "wife". Well, that would be fine except that Buchanan never married; he was a lifelong bachelor. How does Blumenthal make that error, and why wasn't it caught before publication? There were a few other times where I came across something that seemed a bit dubious as to factualness.
Also an issue for me was the misleading title and depiction of the book: since it advertises itself as supposedly being about Lincoln, it should really be about Lincoln. Douglas gets more attention here than Lincoln does. Lincoln is in roughly half of the book. While context is key, and Blumenthal does a superb job in setting that context, it just goes on for too long. I was more understanding of that in the first two volumes, because with Lincoln's youth there is only going to be so much riveting action to go around, and then he has a single term in Congress. But by this point in his life, he has become a regional figure for sure, while also venturing out onto the national stage. Lincoln's family life is also completely missing from these pages. Yes, I know it is a "political life" as billed. Yet, it felt to me that Blumenthal at times lost focus of Lincoln since he was so concerned with the many admittedly serious issues going on in the United States at that time. This is a good book, but if you are looking for a focus mainly or solely on Lincoln, look elsewhere.
Grade: B+
October 12, 2019
When I first saw the title of the 3rd volume (of 5) of the The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, at first I thought, with the book culminating in Lincoln's election as President, that it must be a quote from Lincoln himself about the pinnacle of power (also, with shades of Daniel Day-Lewis's Oscar clip about "cloaked in immense power" in my head).
Actually: "All the Powers of Earth" is a reoccurring political statement by the slave powers that they would never relinquish their perception that slavery was a property right and all the power on Earth would not pull their way of life from their hands.
Amongst other things, this volume, without explicitly stating it as an aim, absolutely obliterates the continuing misconception that the Civil War was about a "lost cause" or slave rights. In fact, THE VERY REASON Lincoln was fortunate enough to be elected with less than 40% of the vote was the fracturing of the Democratic Party immediately down the fault line of permanently establishing slavery in ALL states, and Stephen Douglas is the tragic personality at the center of that fracturing. He dominates the book more than Lincoln, because his tragic ambition was doomed by his personality, his Northern origins, and his marriage to "popular sovereignty", his commitment to tacking towards the middle in order to forge a coalition very friendly to the South's slavery ownership but also friendly to enough moderates in the North to forge a coalition to the Presidency. The South rebelled around Jefferson Davis, already a powerful slavery rights advocate, and split into Unionist and Secessionist camps.
Meanwhile, how Lincoln achieves the Presidency is the antithesis of Douglas's approach. Indeed, the 1860 election was transformative not just because Lincoln won, but because it shattered the 50 year plus ascendancy of slave powers, or slavery accommodators, in Washington. Lincoln was very open to eliminating slavery, and the South launched into hysterics, essentially quitting the US in protest before Lincoln was even inaugurated! It was also very clear that the South, shaken by the failures of Pierce and Buchanan in the Presidency, wanted to place a Southerner at the head of their states no matter the price.
After nearly 1300 pages of text, Lincoln finally emerges as a politician halfway through this third volume. His organization of the Illinois Republican Party made him a figure that debated Douglas openly about slavery, making his name in the state. Fortuitous as well was the holding of the 1860 convention in Chicago, which enhanced Lincoln's stature as a "compromise" candidate when too many Republicans balked at Seward, the obvious statesman of the party, but one which the party balked at as "unelectable" in the national election. Lincoln was likable in party circles, but really mainly for a number of exceptionally cogent and powerful debates and speeches, all of which are detailed here.
I'm sure the 4th book will focus on Lincoln's political organization of the Civil War, culminating in the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 5th will do the same with a focus on winning the war and the 13th Amendment (as in Spielberg's Lincoln film). In fact, Blumenthal stands on the precipice of covering the same ground of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, which is heavily focused on the White House and Cabinet during the Civil War years. One could read the first 3 Blumenthal books at this point and then Goodwin to get the full "Robert Caro" treatment of Lincoln. But I look forward to Blumenthal's take on the politics of the Civil War. Strong sections of this book are the chapters on John Brown, Stephen Douglas, the speeches of Lincoln, and the election itself. It is definitely for experienced readers however; the series is currently 1,500 pages+ of heavy political detail and Lincoln has only just been elected.
Actually: "All the Powers of Earth" is a reoccurring political statement by the slave powers that they would never relinquish their perception that slavery was a property right and all the power on Earth would not pull their way of life from their hands.
Amongst other things, this volume, without explicitly stating it as an aim, absolutely obliterates the continuing misconception that the Civil War was about a "lost cause" or slave rights. In fact, THE VERY REASON Lincoln was fortunate enough to be elected with less than 40% of the vote was the fracturing of the Democratic Party immediately down the fault line of permanently establishing slavery in ALL states, and Stephen Douglas is the tragic personality at the center of that fracturing. He dominates the book more than Lincoln, because his tragic ambition was doomed by his personality, his Northern origins, and his marriage to "popular sovereignty", his commitment to tacking towards the middle in order to forge a coalition very friendly to the South's slavery ownership but also friendly to enough moderates in the North to forge a coalition to the Presidency. The South rebelled around Jefferson Davis, already a powerful slavery rights advocate, and split into Unionist and Secessionist camps.
Meanwhile, how Lincoln achieves the Presidency is the antithesis of Douglas's approach. Indeed, the 1860 election was transformative not just because Lincoln won, but because it shattered the 50 year plus ascendancy of slave powers, or slavery accommodators, in Washington. Lincoln was very open to eliminating slavery, and the South launched into hysterics, essentially quitting the US in protest before Lincoln was even inaugurated! It was also very clear that the South, shaken by the failures of Pierce and Buchanan in the Presidency, wanted to place a Southerner at the head of their states no matter the price.
After nearly 1300 pages of text, Lincoln finally emerges as a politician halfway through this third volume. His organization of the Illinois Republican Party made him a figure that debated Douglas openly about slavery, making his name in the state. Fortuitous as well was the holding of the 1860 convention in Chicago, which enhanced Lincoln's stature as a "compromise" candidate when too many Republicans balked at Seward, the obvious statesman of the party, but one which the party balked at as "unelectable" in the national election. Lincoln was likable in party circles, but really mainly for a number of exceptionally cogent and powerful debates and speeches, all of which are detailed here.
I'm sure the 4th book will focus on Lincoln's political organization of the Civil War, culminating in the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 5th will do the same with a focus on winning the war and the 13th Amendment (as in Spielberg's Lincoln film). In fact, Blumenthal stands on the precipice of covering the same ground of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, which is heavily focused on the White House and Cabinet during the Civil War years. One could read the first 3 Blumenthal books at this point and then Goodwin to get the full "Robert Caro" treatment of Lincoln. But I look forward to Blumenthal's take on the politics of the Civil War. Strong sections of this book are the chapters on John Brown, Stephen Douglas, the speeches of Lincoln, and the election itself. It is definitely for experienced readers however; the series is currently 1,500 pages+ of heavy political detail and Lincoln has only just been elected.
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, 2020
When Sidney Blumenthal began his five volume biography of Lincoln (called The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln) one can only assume that he was thinking about uncovering some new angle on Lincoln - some new perspective on his political skills that other biographers had ignored or under represented.
By the time he completed All the Powers of the Earth (the third book in the series), however, his commentary had turned into something very different - a strange and terrifying reflection not on pre-civil war America, but rather a mirror to our modern society. He acknowledges as much at the end of the book.
"During the past few years I have been immersed in the events and personalities of the period in which Abraham Lincoln emerged as a national leader. But like other Americans I could not avoid having at least one eye wide awake to the whirlwind that bears more than a passing resemblance to the gathering storm that led to Lincoln's election. If the house divided, the manipulations of demagogues, the appeals to anti-immigrant nativism and racism, a dysfunctional presidency, and the breakup of the old parties seem familiar, it is because they were Lincoln's central subjects."
I can't underscore enough how troubling it was to read of the challenges faced by America in the run up to civil war and realize that they are being replicated in our society today. This realization dawns on the reader slowly as Blumenthal lays out the environment surrounding the Lincoln-Douglas Senate debates and the run up to the Presidential election (where this book ends). It is a chilling read in many ways.
There is a great deal of insight here that is worth highlighting. In particular, Blumenthal lays out a impressive case for Lincoln as a master politician - one who understood more about the mood of the nation and the pathway to a Presidential victory than he has been given credit for by other biographers. Yet, it's also clear that Lincoln misjudged the extremism of the southern leaders. I'm anxious to see what Blumenthal makes of this terrible misjudgment in the next book in the series.
It has been a while since I've read a Lincoln biography, but from my memory, Blumenthal makes a much stronger case for Lincoln as an abolitionist than other biographies. I would like to believe this to be true, but I think there is likely some wishful thinking involved in this conclusion.
One of the highlights of the book for me was Blumenthal's brilliant review of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. He covers them comprehensively, not just reviewing each debate but also explaining with exceptional clarity how the debates made Lincoln a national leader and helped him frame his message in a way that led to his nomination by the Republican party. Despite the comprehensiveness, he is careful and succinct with language making this section eminently readable.
On the other hand there is far too much time spent reviewing every angry, threatening speech on the Senate floor between abolitionists and Southern Senators. A few excerpts would have made the case with great clarity, but Blumenthal tallies on for dozens and dozens of pages without adding any further clarity to the rift between north and south and the breakdown of civility and compromise.
All in all, however, this is a small quibble. All the Powers of the Earth is a book that all political leaders today (and most citizens) need to read. I don't know if we can avoid the terrible lessons of division sowed by politics in the 1830s - 1850s, but we have to try and this book on the abject lessons of divisiveness is a good place to start.
By the time he completed All the Powers of the Earth (the third book in the series), however, his commentary had turned into something very different - a strange and terrifying reflection not on pre-civil war America, but rather a mirror to our modern society. He acknowledges as much at the end of the book.
"During the past few years I have been immersed in the events and personalities of the period in which Abraham Lincoln emerged as a national leader. But like other Americans I could not avoid having at least one eye wide awake to the whirlwind that bears more than a passing resemblance to the gathering storm that led to Lincoln's election. If the house divided, the manipulations of demagogues, the appeals to anti-immigrant nativism and racism, a dysfunctional presidency, and the breakup of the old parties seem familiar, it is because they were Lincoln's central subjects."
I can't underscore enough how troubling it was to read of the challenges faced by America in the run up to civil war and realize that they are being replicated in our society today. This realization dawns on the reader slowly as Blumenthal lays out the environment surrounding the Lincoln-Douglas Senate debates and the run up to the Presidential election (where this book ends). It is a chilling read in many ways.
There is a great deal of insight here that is worth highlighting. In particular, Blumenthal lays out a impressive case for Lincoln as a master politician - one who understood more about the mood of the nation and the pathway to a Presidential victory than he has been given credit for by other biographers. Yet, it's also clear that Lincoln misjudged the extremism of the southern leaders. I'm anxious to see what Blumenthal makes of this terrible misjudgment in the next book in the series.
It has been a while since I've read a Lincoln biography, but from my memory, Blumenthal makes a much stronger case for Lincoln as an abolitionist than other biographies. I would like to believe this to be true, but I think there is likely some wishful thinking involved in this conclusion.
One of the highlights of the book for me was Blumenthal's brilliant review of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. He covers them comprehensively, not just reviewing each debate but also explaining with exceptional clarity how the debates made Lincoln a national leader and helped him frame his message in a way that led to his nomination by the Republican party. Despite the comprehensiveness, he is careful and succinct with language making this section eminently readable.
On the other hand there is far too much time spent reviewing every angry, threatening speech on the Senate floor between abolitionists and Southern Senators. A few excerpts would have made the case with great clarity, but Blumenthal tallies on for dozens and dozens of pages without adding any further clarity to the rift between north and south and the breakdown of civility and compromise.
All in all, however, this is a small quibble. All the Powers of the Earth is a book that all political leaders today (and most citizens) need to read. I don't know if we can avoid the terrible lessons of division sowed by politics in the 1830s - 1850s, but we have to try and this book on the abject lessons of divisiveness is a good place to start.
January 15, 2020
Political insider Sidney Blumenthal continues with the third of a planned multi-volume biography on the Political Life of Abraham Lincoln. All the Powers of Earth tackles the years 1856-1860, a critical time period in the gathering storm surrounding slavery, a storm that ends in the American Civil War. As with his previous books in the series, Blumenthal delves deeply into the larger political landscape apart from Lincoln. Part One (approximately a third of the book) barely mentions Lincoln as the focus is on significant events and players driving the slavery debate. Recapping the major milestones of the early and mid-1850s, Blumenthal expertly pours the foundation on which the inevitable conflict is built. Well covered are notables such as Stephen A. Douglas, the caning of Charles Sumner, the skirmishes of Bleeding Kansas, the atrocities of John Brown, and the actions of other more obscure but vitally important figures involved in the rising tide of conflict between free and slaveholding states. While Lincoln purists might be tempted to skip over these parts, they represent the major strength that makes this series unique – placing Lincoln’s rise into the context of the political climate of the age.
Part Two begins Lincoln’s journey from a frontier lawyer with only a single term in Congress to the man who would lead his party into the presidency. After Lincoln is reintroduced into the debate, Blumenthal again sidesteps into the roles of elected politicians like Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, as well as lesser known influencers such as John Slidell and Owen Lovejoy. The rise and fall of the Know-Nothings, the demise of the Whigs, and the surge of a new Republican party are all comprehensively examined as they set the stage for Lincoln’s emergence as a somewhat unexpected leader. As Lincoln becomes a major player, so too does he blossom in Blumenthal’s narrative. Following a failed Senate bid, Lincoln runs face-first into the game-changing Dred Scott decision, which provides the impetus for a second Senate bid against his old rival Stephen A. Douglas. A series of debates around Illinois, while unsuccessful for Lincoln’s Senate hopes, position him and the Republicans for the next presidential election. Meanwhile, Douglas finds himself as Icarus soaring too close to the sun, only to plummet as his life pinballs between rivalries with Lincoln on one side and James Buchanan and the Southern Democrats on the other.
While all the chapters are well written, two especially stand out. The namesake chapter “All the Powers of Earth” is a masterpiece of exposition summarizing Lincoln’s position and his interpretation of the Founders views on “all men are created equal” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Later, each of the Lincoln-Douglas debates is comprehensively examined in a chapter, “The Moral Lights.” These two chapters reveal Lincoln’s skill in defining the platforms of both parties, definitions that ensure the split of the Democrats between North and South, thus positioning the Republican party to successfully ascend to the presidency. A must-read for all Lincoln scholars.
[Note: This review was originally published in Civil War Times magazine and added here 1/15/2020]
Part Two begins Lincoln’s journey from a frontier lawyer with only a single term in Congress to the man who would lead his party into the presidency. After Lincoln is reintroduced into the debate, Blumenthal again sidesteps into the roles of elected politicians like Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, as well as lesser known influencers such as John Slidell and Owen Lovejoy. The rise and fall of the Know-Nothings, the demise of the Whigs, and the surge of a new Republican party are all comprehensively examined as they set the stage for Lincoln’s emergence as a somewhat unexpected leader. As Lincoln becomes a major player, so too does he blossom in Blumenthal’s narrative. Following a failed Senate bid, Lincoln runs face-first into the game-changing Dred Scott decision, which provides the impetus for a second Senate bid against his old rival Stephen A. Douglas. A series of debates around Illinois, while unsuccessful for Lincoln’s Senate hopes, position him and the Republicans for the next presidential election. Meanwhile, Douglas finds himself as Icarus soaring too close to the sun, only to plummet as his life pinballs between rivalries with Lincoln on one side and James Buchanan and the Southern Democrats on the other.
While all the chapters are well written, two especially stand out. The namesake chapter “All the Powers of Earth” is a masterpiece of exposition summarizing Lincoln’s position and his interpretation of the Founders views on “all men are created equal” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Later, each of the Lincoln-Douglas debates is comprehensively examined in a chapter, “The Moral Lights.” These two chapters reveal Lincoln’s skill in defining the platforms of both parties, definitions that ensure the split of the Democrats between North and South, thus positioning the Republican party to successfully ascend to the presidency. A must-read for all Lincoln scholars.
[Note: This review was originally published in Civil War Times magazine and added here 1/15/2020]
June 27, 2021
Volume III of the ongoing in-depth account of the political career of Lincoln. Detailing with precision the intricacies of the troubled times leading to the Civil War.The book ends with the birth of the Republican Party and the election of 1860.
April 7, 2024
Well written and well researched. The fact that Blumenthal put these books together without the help of research assistants is really impressive.
July 11, 2021
All The Powers Of Earth is the third volume in author Sidney Blumenthal’s ambitious five volume in-depth biographical study of America’s Greatest President. Mr. Blumenthal is a quintessential Washington Beltway “insider’s insider.” He was the former assistant and senior adviser to President Clinton and senior adviser to Hillary as well. Probably going to lose a good number of readers with that sentence alone. He has also been a national staff reporter for The Washington Post and Washington editor and writer for The New Yorker. In addition, he has written several other books concerning American politics in the latter portion of the 20th Century into the turn of the new century.
I’ve read a good amount of Lincoln-specific, and overall Civil War, historical writings and, I have to admit, Mr. Blumenthal’s writing flows as smoothly, is as meticulously researched, and transfigures very complex issues and political scenarios, into concise and easily digestible chunks, for not only history buffs, but overall generally interested readers as well.
And I do say “have to admit,” as I heard him give a lecture at the Louisville Public Library back in 2016 when he was promoting his second volume Wrestling With His Angel (1849-1856): The Political Life Of Abraham Lincoln and got his signature on that volume.
But I asked him a question in the Q&A after his lecture, and he was more than a tad dismissive in his “Inner Beltway” kinda way and tap-danced around the answer. Well, the Deemer being the Deem, I followed up and stuck with it until he answered it. But I could tell his underwear had gotten into a twist from the assertive guy from Kentucky: of all places!
But now to the book – It covers the period of American politics following the deaths of the triumvirate of legendary power-brokers that had dictated and dominated Congress for about two decades – Henry Clay (the Kentuckian known as “The Great Compromiser,” or “The Western Star” and the leader and foundation of the Whig Party and who was considered by Lincoln to be his “beau ideal of a statesman.” He invented the power of the Speaker of the House, hammered out the Missouri Compromise of 1820, was Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams, and nearly elected president three different times), Henry Calhoun (known as the “Cast-Steel Man” and the senator from South Carolina who reached Vice President and was a staunch defender of slavery and protecting the interests of the white South as well as a leader and proponent of states’ rights, limited government, nullification, and opposition to high tariffs. In other words, he planted deep seeds of secession and was “The Rainmaker” of The Civil War. Not a great American), and Daniel Webster (known as “The Great Orator,” who was a lawyer and statesman who represented NH and Mass in Congress and served as Secretary of State under Presidents Harrison, Tyler, and Fillmore. As one of the most prominent lawyers of the 19th century, he argued over 200 cases before the Supreme Court between 1814 and his death in 1852. During his life, he was a member of the Federalist, National Republican, and Whig political parties).
The great nullifier Calhoun insisted the states had preeminent authority over the federal government, and vociferously objected to any compromise that would thwart the extension of slavery anywhere in the country, as an “injustice” which he called the “oppression” of the South. “No sir,” he prophesied, “the Union can be broken.”
Calhoun’s acolyte, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, in opposing the admission of California as a free state, threatened, “If sir, this spirit of sectional aggrandizement, or if gentlemen prefer, this love they bear for the African race, shall cause the disruption of these states, the last chapter of our history will be a sad commentary upon the justice and the wisdom of our people.” (page 5)
Sticking with Calhoun for a bit more, Blumenthal expounds – “In the deepest recesses of his brain and to the marrow of his bones, Calhoun understood one thing above all: that slavery was power – economic power, political power, social power. Confining slavery to its regional cage would inevitably lead to a dwindling Southern political minority and force a crisis of its whole system. He knew the future of the Slave Power depended on adroit mastery of the federal government’s inner levers, which as Secretary of State under President John Tyler, he had skillfully manipulated in precipitating the Mexican War. He also believed that slavery must become an imperial project claiming Cuba and other Latin American lands that would become slave states to tip the balance for the South. If Southern domination over the federal government was ever broken, there could be – should be- no Union. Peering into the abyss, he darkly predicted that the future loss of the executive branch to an antislavery president would trigger secession. Calhoun’s fatal damage outlived him. His overreaching failure provided a pessimistic and cautionary tale for Southern Rightists that they must eternally rule the Democratic Party and the citadel of the federal government to sustain their increasingly precarious power.” (page 24)
The old antebellum South’s intricate social structure included many small slave-owners and relatively few large ones. Large slave-holders were extremely rare. In the years leading up to the Civil War, only 11,000 Southerners, three-quarters of one percent of the white population owned more than 50 slaves; a mere 2,358 owned as many as 100 slaves or more. However, this minuscule amount of Southerners had attained enormous power in national politics in Washington and were exerting an inordinate amount of influence on the entire country.
The Democratic Party had basically been hijacked by wealthy slave interests. The similarities to what is currently underway in our country are disturbing to say the least.
The parallels underway within today’s Republican Party with the “radical faction” that has all but seized control of a storied American political party basically in the name of one dangerously unhinged demagogue, is shocking to the point of disbelief. Those who do not know their history, are bound to repeat it.
By the 1850’s, an aggressive Southern Slave Power had basically seized control of the federal government and threatened to subvert republican ideals of liberty, equality, and self-rule. At the same time, an increasing number of Southerners had begun to believe that antislavery radicals dominated Northern politics and would “rejoice” in the ultimate consequences of abolition-race war.
During the pre-Civil War years, the American political system became incapable of containing the sectional disputes between the North and South that had smoldered for more than half a century. One major political party founded by Henry Clay–the Whigs–collapsed. Another–the Democrats–split into Northern and Southern factions. With the breakdown of the party system, the issues raised by slavery exploded. The bonds that had bound the country for more than seven decades began to unravel.
Within this boiling cauldron of political intrigue and skullduggery, we had a string of uninspiring and downright incompetent presidents – Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan.
Mr. Blumenthal provides extensive and detailed backgrounds on the above three presidents, as well as many other power-brokers of the time, including – Jefferson Davis, Sen. James Henry Hammond (SC) “Cotton is King” speech, Horace Greeley, Nathaniel Banks, Edward Bates, Henry Ward Beecher, Francis P. Blair, John Breckinridge (KY congressman), Lewis Cass, Salmon Chase, Jesse W. Fell, William Lloyd Garrison, Joshua Giddings, Carl Schurz, William Seward, John Slidell, Alexander Stephens, Leonard Swett, Lyman Trumbull, and Thurlow Weed; among many others.
In addition, the author explains many complex issues and historical occurrences during this time with an assured and easy-to-read hand, such as – the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the convoluted story leading up to the John Brown-led insurrectionist attack on Harpers Ferry, VA and his eventual execution, Bloody Kansas & Bloody Missouri, the Dred Scott decision passed down by white supremacist Chief Justice Robert Taney ruling that African-Americans could not be considered citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories of the United States (a dangerous example of the perils of stacking the court system), and the Fugitive Slave Act.
As mentioned earlier, this turbulent period also saw the dissolution of the old political standard-bearer the Whig Party, and the emergence of multiple factions and parties spinning off in many different directions. The Know-Nothing Party (anti-immigration views with nativist principles very similar to rhetoric currently being espoused), the Free-Soil Party, the American Anti-Slavery Society, the Anti-Masonic Party, the Liberty Party, and the Constitutional Union Party.
One of the most important incidents of this period is provided in painstaking detail by the author as he vividly describes the animalistic and sub-human caning of Senator Charles Sumner (MA) on the floor of the U.S. Senate by (SC) congressman Preston Brooks. Mr. Sumner, a fiery and brilliant orator, had repeatedly lambasted the hypocrisy and inhumane aspects of slavery, including the rampant raping of slave women by their masters, resulting in the miscegenation that they so hypocritically condemned with their public comments. At this time, it was not un-common for duels to be challenged and physical force threatened by the Slave Power, which is all “part of the playbook” by bullies in power.
But Preston Brooks carried it one step further with his attack on the esteemed Mr. Sumner. In his own words, “At the concluding words I struck him with my cane and gave him about 30 first rate stripes with a gutta percha cane. Every lick went where I intended. For about the first five or six licks he offered to make fight but I plied him so rapidly that he did not touch me. Towards the last he bellowed like a calf.” (page 135)
Standing over Sumner, his unconscious body stretched on the floor with his overturned chair on top of his legs, Brooks still “had a piece of the stick in his hand,” said KY senator John J. Crittenden. “I took hold of it, and he very gently yielded and allowed me to take it out of his hand.” The cane had shattered from the impact of smashing Sumner’s skull, with one fragment flying at Brooks’ face, cutting near an eye. Said Brooks, “I wore my cane out completely but saved the head which is gold” as a valuable souvenir. (page 137)
Brooks was acclaimed as a hero across the South. He boasted, “fragments of the stick are begged for as sacred relics.” He was overwhelmed with gifts of canes. Prominent citizens of Charleston gave him one inscribed, “Hit him again.” The Charleston Mercury newspaper stated, “All feel that it is time for freedom of speech and freedom of the cudgel to go together.” The Richmond Enquirer declared – “Sumner and Sumner’s friends must be punished and silenced with their runaway negroes and masculine women.”
The highly respected Mr. Sumner was never quite the same after the vicious attack and suffered from nightmares, severe headaches, and what is now understood to be post-traumatic stress disorder the rest of his life. Preston Brooks died unexpectedly from a violent bout of croup on January 27, 1857. The official telegram announcing his death stated – “He died a horrid death, and suffered intensely. He endeavored to tear his own throat open to get breath.”
It was the most violent and despicable act to occur in the hallowed halls of our nation’s capital, until the ignominious insurrection riot on January 6, 2021, inflamed and ignited by a sitting president and resulting in five deaths and 140 injuries. The bullying and intimidation tactics by the Slave Power-led Democratic Party in the 1850’s have strong echoes that are dangerously alive today.
From the ashes of this chaotic and bitterly divisive time (again, the 1850’s, not today), through the spectacular personal skills, political acumen, and brilliant oratorical genius of one circuit country lawyer from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln, the nascent and glorious initial incarnation of the Republican Party was formed.
Mr. Lincoln challenged the foremost political celebrity and demagogue of the age, the diminutive Stephen A Douglas, his long-time Illinois rival, to seven historical public debates. Through his intellect, his totally unique and convincing oratorical skills, and his winning sense of humor and logic, Mr. Lincoln systematically skewered the pompous and over-confident Mr. Douglas soundly. Talk about a “David & Goliath” story for all times!
Demagoguery has played a significant and detrimental role in American history and politics over the years, and is certainly alive and thriving in today’s America. We should all be vigilant.
The book ends with Lincoln successfully winning the 1860 presidential election and then the Southern aristocratic Slave Power States arrogantly seceding from our blessed Union with resultant catastrophic results. The many tragedies that have struck our country due to arrogance, inflexibility, and partisanship.
We cannot let it happen again…….
P.S. This is the third volume in Mr. Blumenthal’s overly ambitious re-examination of the great Mr. Lincoln’s life and I eagerly await volumes four and five dealing with the ensuing Civil War years.
I’ve read a good amount of Lincoln-specific, and overall Civil War, historical writings and, I have to admit, Mr. Blumenthal’s writing flows as smoothly, is as meticulously researched, and transfigures very complex issues and political scenarios, into concise and easily digestible chunks, for not only history buffs, but overall generally interested readers as well.
And I do say “have to admit,” as I heard him give a lecture at the Louisville Public Library back in 2016 when he was promoting his second volume Wrestling With His Angel (1849-1856): The Political Life Of Abraham Lincoln and got his signature on that volume.
But I asked him a question in the Q&A after his lecture, and he was more than a tad dismissive in his “Inner Beltway” kinda way and tap-danced around the answer. Well, the Deemer being the Deem, I followed up and stuck with it until he answered it. But I could tell his underwear had gotten into a twist from the assertive guy from Kentucky: of all places!
But now to the book – It covers the period of American politics following the deaths of the triumvirate of legendary power-brokers that had dictated and dominated Congress for about two decades – Henry Clay (the Kentuckian known as “The Great Compromiser,” or “The Western Star” and the leader and foundation of the Whig Party and who was considered by Lincoln to be his “beau ideal of a statesman.” He invented the power of the Speaker of the House, hammered out the Missouri Compromise of 1820, was Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams, and nearly elected president three different times), Henry Calhoun (known as the “Cast-Steel Man” and the senator from South Carolina who reached Vice President and was a staunch defender of slavery and protecting the interests of the white South as well as a leader and proponent of states’ rights, limited government, nullification, and opposition to high tariffs. In other words, he planted deep seeds of secession and was “The Rainmaker” of The Civil War. Not a great American), and Daniel Webster (known as “The Great Orator,” who was a lawyer and statesman who represented NH and Mass in Congress and served as Secretary of State under Presidents Harrison, Tyler, and Fillmore. As one of the most prominent lawyers of the 19th century, he argued over 200 cases before the Supreme Court between 1814 and his death in 1852. During his life, he was a member of the Federalist, National Republican, and Whig political parties).
The great nullifier Calhoun insisted the states had preeminent authority over the federal government, and vociferously objected to any compromise that would thwart the extension of slavery anywhere in the country, as an “injustice” which he called the “oppression” of the South. “No sir,” he prophesied, “the Union can be broken.”
Calhoun’s acolyte, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, in opposing the admission of California as a free state, threatened, “If sir, this spirit of sectional aggrandizement, or if gentlemen prefer, this love they bear for the African race, shall cause the disruption of these states, the last chapter of our history will be a sad commentary upon the justice and the wisdom of our people.” (page 5)
Sticking with Calhoun for a bit more, Blumenthal expounds – “In the deepest recesses of his brain and to the marrow of his bones, Calhoun understood one thing above all: that slavery was power – economic power, political power, social power. Confining slavery to its regional cage would inevitably lead to a dwindling Southern political minority and force a crisis of its whole system. He knew the future of the Slave Power depended on adroit mastery of the federal government’s inner levers, which as Secretary of State under President John Tyler, he had skillfully manipulated in precipitating the Mexican War. He also believed that slavery must become an imperial project claiming Cuba and other Latin American lands that would become slave states to tip the balance for the South. If Southern domination over the federal government was ever broken, there could be – should be- no Union. Peering into the abyss, he darkly predicted that the future loss of the executive branch to an antislavery president would trigger secession. Calhoun’s fatal damage outlived him. His overreaching failure provided a pessimistic and cautionary tale for Southern Rightists that they must eternally rule the Democratic Party and the citadel of the federal government to sustain their increasingly precarious power.” (page 24)
The old antebellum South’s intricate social structure included many small slave-owners and relatively few large ones. Large slave-holders were extremely rare. In the years leading up to the Civil War, only 11,000 Southerners, three-quarters of one percent of the white population owned more than 50 slaves; a mere 2,358 owned as many as 100 slaves or more. However, this minuscule amount of Southerners had attained enormous power in national politics in Washington and were exerting an inordinate amount of influence on the entire country.
The Democratic Party had basically been hijacked by wealthy slave interests. The similarities to what is currently underway in our country are disturbing to say the least.
The parallels underway within today’s Republican Party with the “radical faction” that has all but seized control of a storied American political party basically in the name of one dangerously unhinged demagogue, is shocking to the point of disbelief. Those who do not know their history, are bound to repeat it.
By the 1850’s, an aggressive Southern Slave Power had basically seized control of the federal government and threatened to subvert republican ideals of liberty, equality, and self-rule. At the same time, an increasing number of Southerners had begun to believe that antislavery radicals dominated Northern politics and would “rejoice” in the ultimate consequences of abolition-race war.
During the pre-Civil War years, the American political system became incapable of containing the sectional disputes between the North and South that had smoldered for more than half a century. One major political party founded by Henry Clay–the Whigs–collapsed. Another–the Democrats–split into Northern and Southern factions. With the breakdown of the party system, the issues raised by slavery exploded. The bonds that had bound the country for more than seven decades began to unravel.
Within this boiling cauldron of political intrigue and skullduggery, we had a string of uninspiring and downright incompetent presidents – Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan.
Mr. Blumenthal provides extensive and detailed backgrounds on the above three presidents, as well as many other power-brokers of the time, including – Jefferson Davis, Sen. James Henry Hammond (SC) “Cotton is King” speech, Horace Greeley, Nathaniel Banks, Edward Bates, Henry Ward Beecher, Francis P. Blair, John Breckinridge (KY congressman), Lewis Cass, Salmon Chase, Jesse W. Fell, William Lloyd Garrison, Joshua Giddings, Carl Schurz, William Seward, John Slidell, Alexander Stephens, Leonard Swett, Lyman Trumbull, and Thurlow Weed; among many others.
In addition, the author explains many complex issues and historical occurrences during this time with an assured and easy-to-read hand, such as – the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the convoluted story leading up to the John Brown-led insurrectionist attack on Harpers Ferry, VA and his eventual execution, Bloody Kansas & Bloody Missouri, the Dred Scott decision passed down by white supremacist Chief Justice Robert Taney ruling that African-Americans could not be considered citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories of the United States (a dangerous example of the perils of stacking the court system), and the Fugitive Slave Act.
As mentioned earlier, this turbulent period also saw the dissolution of the old political standard-bearer the Whig Party, and the emergence of multiple factions and parties spinning off in many different directions. The Know-Nothing Party (anti-immigration views with nativist principles very similar to rhetoric currently being espoused), the Free-Soil Party, the American Anti-Slavery Society, the Anti-Masonic Party, the Liberty Party, and the Constitutional Union Party.
One of the most important incidents of this period is provided in painstaking detail by the author as he vividly describes the animalistic and sub-human caning of Senator Charles Sumner (MA) on the floor of the U.S. Senate by (SC) congressman Preston Brooks. Mr. Sumner, a fiery and brilliant orator, had repeatedly lambasted the hypocrisy and inhumane aspects of slavery, including the rampant raping of slave women by their masters, resulting in the miscegenation that they so hypocritically condemned with their public comments. At this time, it was not un-common for duels to be challenged and physical force threatened by the Slave Power, which is all “part of the playbook” by bullies in power.
But Preston Brooks carried it one step further with his attack on the esteemed Mr. Sumner. In his own words, “At the concluding words I struck him with my cane and gave him about 30 first rate stripes with a gutta percha cane. Every lick went where I intended. For about the first five or six licks he offered to make fight but I plied him so rapidly that he did not touch me. Towards the last he bellowed like a calf.” (page 135)
Standing over Sumner, his unconscious body stretched on the floor with his overturned chair on top of his legs, Brooks still “had a piece of the stick in his hand,” said KY senator John J. Crittenden. “I took hold of it, and he very gently yielded and allowed me to take it out of his hand.” The cane had shattered from the impact of smashing Sumner’s skull, with one fragment flying at Brooks’ face, cutting near an eye. Said Brooks, “I wore my cane out completely but saved the head which is gold” as a valuable souvenir. (page 137)
Brooks was acclaimed as a hero across the South. He boasted, “fragments of the stick are begged for as sacred relics.” He was overwhelmed with gifts of canes. Prominent citizens of Charleston gave him one inscribed, “Hit him again.” The Charleston Mercury newspaper stated, “All feel that it is time for freedom of speech and freedom of the cudgel to go together.” The Richmond Enquirer declared – “Sumner and Sumner’s friends must be punished and silenced with their runaway negroes and masculine women.”
The highly respected Mr. Sumner was never quite the same after the vicious attack and suffered from nightmares, severe headaches, and what is now understood to be post-traumatic stress disorder the rest of his life. Preston Brooks died unexpectedly from a violent bout of croup on January 27, 1857. The official telegram announcing his death stated – “He died a horrid death, and suffered intensely. He endeavored to tear his own throat open to get breath.”
It was the most violent and despicable act to occur in the hallowed halls of our nation’s capital, until the ignominious insurrection riot on January 6, 2021, inflamed and ignited by a sitting president and resulting in five deaths and 140 injuries. The bullying and intimidation tactics by the Slave Power-led Democratic Party in the 1850’s have strong echoes that are dangerously alive today.
From the ashes of this chaotic and bitterly divisive time (again, the 1850’s, not today), through the spectacular personal skills, political acumen, and brilliant oratorical genius of one circuit country lawyer from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln, the nascent and glorious initial incarnation of the Republican Party was formed.
Mr. Lincoln challenged the foremost political celebrity and demagogue of the age, the diminutive Stephen A Douglas, his long-time Illinois rival, to seven historical public debates. Through his intellect, his totally unique and convincing oratorical skills, and his winning sense of humor and logic, Mr. Lincoln systematically skewered the pompous and over-confident Mr. Douglas soundly. Talk about a “David & Goliath” story for all times!
Demagoguery has played a significant and detrimental role in American history and politics over the years, and is certainly alive and thriving in today’s America. We should all be vigilant.
The book ends with Lincoln successfully winning the 1860 presidential election and then the Southern aristocratic Slave Power States arrogantly seceding from our blessed Union with resultant catastrophic results. The many tragedies that have struck our country due to arrogance, inflexibility, and partisanship.
We cannot let it happen again…….
P.S. This is the third volume in Mr. Blumenthal’s overly ambitious re-examination of the great Mr. Lincoln’s life and I eagerly await volumes four and five dealing with the ensuing Civil War years.
February 28, 2021
The title alludes to the a phrase Lincoln used in a number of his speeches and letters, specifically to the Slave Power, a political reality in ante-bellum America and the dominant factor in the 1850s. Like the other volumes in this biography, Blumenthal goes to pains to depict the political world in which Lincoln operated so there are entire chapters in which he is scarcely mentioned. Much of the narrative centers around Bleeding Kansas, the caning of Charles Sumner, the Dred Scott decision and John Brown.
These are the years Lincoln rose to prominence and through it all we see Lincoln as a master politician, strategic, adroit, and ethical. Front and center is his long rivalry with Stephen A. Douglas.
The 1850's were probably the most rancorous decade in American political history and bear some resemblance to our own times. In Blumenthal's words "the manipulation of demagogues, the appeals to anti-immigrant nativism and racism, a dysfunctional presidency, and the breakup of old parties" were even more a feature of the landscape than they are today.
I was a little disappointed with the editing; the text is sprinkled with grammatical and usage errors and one series of sentences that are repeated on the same page. Not enough of a factor to detract from the book's value, however.
These are the years Lincoln rose to prominence and through it all we see Lincoln as a master politician, strategic, adroit, and ethical. Front and center is his long rivalry with Stephen A. Douglas.
The 1850's were probably the most rancorous decade in American political history and bear some resemblance to our own times. In Blumenthal's words "the manipulation of demagogues, the appeals to anti-immigrant nativism and racism, a dysfunctional presidency, and the breakup of old parties" were even more a feature of the landscape than they are today.
I was a little disappointed with the editing; the text is sprinkled with grammatical and usage errors and one series of sentences that are repeated on the same page. Not enough of a factor to detract from the book's value, however.
May 29, 2021
This otherwise excellent book is marred by numerous flaws in its direct quotations. It usually takes only a few minutes to track down the original source of a quotation by enclosing a few of its words within quotation marks and then searching for them on Google. Again and again when I did this, I found that Blumenthal's wording was inaccurate. It is shocking that he or an assistant did not take the trouble to correct these errors.
May 13, 2020
Perhaps not as spellbinding as the first two volumes, but still a strong take on the political history of Lincoln and his times through the birth of the Republican party, his two failed senatorial races (the second one against Douglas) and his ascent to the presidency.
November 7, 2019
Blumenthal third volume in his five-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln reverberates with the detail of his fluctuating, uncertain journey up to his nomination to the presidency. Some books of this length tempt a scan of details. Not this book. Every intrigue, every congressional contest, every editorial written by Lincoln or his opponents, especially Douglas, invite mindful reading. Even seemingly small incidents reveal their import. Here is an example: “Lincoln had tried the phrase, ‘half slave and half free,’ on the conservative Old Whig Judge T. Lyle Dickey in 1854 when they were sharing a room on the circuit. "'Oh Lincoln,’ Dickey admonished, “'go to sleep.'” The irony in this scene needs no explanation.
Lincoln’s earlier defeat for the senate illustrates a consistency of principle practiced by the politician. Lincoln withdrew from a race in favor of third-candidate Trumbull rather than see a Douglas ally and no friend to anti-slavery elected. Before the Republican convention convened in Springfield to nominate its candidates in 1858, Lincoln rehearsed his convention speech in front of half-a dozen friends. The speech included his famous biblical phrase, “a house divided cannot stand.” Responses ranged from, “ahead of its time,” to, “a damned fool utterance.” Lincoln listened patiently, then responded: “The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to truth – let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right.” Herndon, Lincoln’s good friend, predicted the speech would lose him the senate, but, “deliver that speech as read and it will make you president.” A good friend indeed.
I missed nothing by choosing to read Blumenthal’s prior two volumes on Lincoln, “A Self-Made Man,” and, “Wresting with His Angels,” after readng this one. This third volume of Lincoln’s political life stands by itself. Contrary to other readings, Blumenthal informs us that Lincoln had not the slightest suspicion that his run for the senate would lead to the presidency. Or where his principled stand on slavery would lead. Senator Douglas, a long-time nemesis of Lincoln, is consistently revealed as an opportunist, liar and flagrant racist. Interesting to note that, when Douglas opposed the Lecompton convention in Kansas, a number of Republicans from the East considered trying to bring Douglas into the Republican party as a candidate for both senate and the presidency. Blumenthal makes clear that Douglas’s opposition to the proslavery Lecompton delegation was pure opportunism, no principle involved.
As an aside, I cannot help contrast the Lincoln-Douglas debates with present debates. The 1858 debates had no moderator. Each candidate was given an hour for his introductory speech, his opponent a full 90 minutes to respond, followed in turn with the first speaker given 30 minutes for a rebuttal. Contrast that with our current Democratic debates of three moderators, with candidates given one to two minutes to respond to questions and rebuttal. How times and attention spans have changed.
Blumenthal closes his third volume of Lincoln with a detailed story of how Lincoln won the Republican nomination in Chicago. He points out how the German-American community was an essential element in securing Lincoln the nomination. Some of these German immigrants were refugees from the 1848 revolution in Europe. They were acquainted with a man who was an admirer of Lincoln – Karl Marx.
Lincoln’s earlier defeat for the senate illustrates a consistency of principle practiced by the politician. Lincoln withdrew from a race in favor of third-candidate Trumbull rather than see a Douglas ally and no friend to anti-slavery elected. Before the Republican convention convened in Springfield to nominate its candidates in 1858, Lincoln rehearsed his convention speech in front of half-a dozen friends. The speech included his famous biblical phrase, “a house divided cannot stand.” Responses ranged from, “ahead of its time,” to, “a damned fool utterance.” Lincoln listened patiently, then responded: “The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to truth – let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right.” Herndon, Lincoln’s good friend, predicted the speech would lose him the senate, but, “deliver that speech as read and it will make you president.” A good friend indeed.
I missed nothing by choosing to read Blumenthal’s prior two volumes on Lincoln, “A Self-Made Man,” and, “Wresting with His Angels,” after readng this one. This third volume of Lincoln’s political life stands by itself. Contrary to other readings, Blumenthal informs us that Lincoln had not the slightest suspicion that his run for the senate would lead to the presidency. Or where his principled stand on slavery would lead. Senator Douglas, a long-time nemesis of Lincoln, is consistently revealed as an opportunist, liar and flagrant racist. Interesting to note that, when Douglas opposed the Lecompton convention in Kansas, a number of Republicans from the East considered trying to bring Douglas into the Republican party as a candidate for both senate and the presidency. Blumenthal makes clear that Douglas’s opposition to the proslavery Lecompton delegation was pure opportunism, no principle involved.
As an aside, I cannot help contrast the Lincoln-Douglas debates with present debates. The 1858 debates had no moderator. Each candidate was given an hour for his introductory speech, his opponent a full 90 minutes to respond, followed in turn with the first speaker given 30 minutes for a rebuttal. Contrast that with our current Democratic debates of three moderators, with candidates given one to two minutes to respond to questions and rebuttal. How times and attention spans have changed.
Blumenthal closes his third volume of Lincoln with a detailed story of how Lincoln won the Republican nomination in Chicago. He points out how the German-American community was an essential element in securing Lincoln the nomination. Some of these German immigrants were refugees from the 1848 revolution in Europe. They were acquainted with a man who was an admirer of Lincoln – Karl Marx.
July 3, 2022
I finished Sydney Blumenthal’s, 3rd volume ( in a reportedly planned 5 volume history) in his biography on Abraham Lincoln m The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln: All the Powers of the Earth, 1856-1860.
The book starts with the the issues of the 1850’s, including The Kansas Nebraska Act, The Compromise of 1850, The Dred Scott Decision, the demise of the Whig Party and the continued sectionalization of the Democratic Party. It brings up many of the lives of many of the Democratic Party, Whig and early Republican Party as well as the the presidencies of Franklin Pierce and the weak James Buchanan.
Others of note both early and throughout are Stephen A. Douglas, Jefferson Davis, David Davis, Horace Greeley, William Seward, Simon Cameron, Carl Schulz, Edwin Bates, Charles Sumner, Thurlow Weed, John Brown, Roger Taney, Henry Ward Beecher, Salmon Chase and William Herndon.
The biography is both a study of the times where the United States was in the quickening spiral of sectionalism based largely on abolitionist and anti slavery parties and the slave holding parties that ultimately led to the Civil War as well as the redemption of Abraham Lincoln who after one ineffective term in Congress was left for dead politically at the national level. This rebirth was led by the famous Lincoln Douglas debates and his transition from a Whig to a Republican.
The book leaves off with the unlikely nomination and ultimate winning of the Presidency by Lincoln.
So well written and informative I cannot wait for the publication of volume 4 on his first term ad President.
Wholeheartedly endorse this 5 star book.
The book starts with the the issues of the 1850’s, including The Kansas Nebraska Act, The Compromise of 1850, The Dred Scott Decision, the demise of the Whig Party and the continued sectionalization of the Democratic Party. It brings up many of the lives of many of the Democratic Party, Whig and early Republican Party as well as the the presidencies of Franklin Pierce and the weak James Buchanan.
Others of note both early and throughout are Stephen A. Douglas, Jefferson Davis, David Davis, Horace Greeley, William Seward, Simon Cameron, Carl Schulz, Edwin Bates, Charles Sumner, Thurlow Weed, John Brown, Roger Taney, Henry Ward Beecher, Salmon Chase and William Herndon.
The biography is both a study of the times where the United States was in the quickening spiral of sectionalism based largely on abolitionist and anti slavery parties and the slave holding parties that ultimately led to the Civil War as well as the redemption of Abraham Lincoln who after one ineffective term in Congress was left for dead politically at the national level. This rebirth was led by the famous Lincoln Douglas debates and his transition from a Whig to a Republican.
The book leaves off with the unlikely nomination and ultimate winning of the Presidency by Lincoln.
So well written and informative I cannot wait for the publication of volume 4 on his first term ad President.
Wholeheartedly endorse this 5 star book.
August 6, 2020
This is the 3rd volume of Blumenthal's political biography of Abraham Lincoln. There are large parts of this book that do not mention Lincoln. Rather the author explores the political context in which Lincoln found himself and more or less successfully addressed. Some of the most fascinating part of all this is the degree to which personal animosities trumped public policy which the various players sought. It was also fun to learn about all the backroom political dealings that were often handled by 3rd parties of through letters (though the later could end up "biting" the author. Along the way I learned that Lincoln secretly owned a German language newspaper.
My only criticism here is that the author favors long multi phrase sentences in which I sometimes became lost and which required re reading. But this is truly an outstanding work. I look forward to volume 4 and 5
My only criticism here is that the author favors long multi phrase sentences in which I sometimes became lost and which required re reading. But this is truly an outstanding work. I look forward to volume 4 and 5
November 20, 2019
Much like the first two volumes of the series, the strength of Blumenthal’s books are the detail he provides. In this third installment (of a now-projected 5 volumes), Blumenthal covers the momentous years of the late 1850s. Even casual Lincoln readers will know the basics of Kansas-Nebraska, Dred Scott, the Lincoln-Douglas Senate debates, John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, and the Presidential election of 1860. And indeed, those are the principal events here, but through extensive research and taking the time to explore the nuance of a wide variety of political players, Blumenthal makes his books valuable reads for the curious novice and serious Lincoln scholars. I very much forward to the two remaining books in the series.
November 1, 2019
This third volume of Blumenthal's political biography of Lincoln is just as enlightening and informative as the first two. He ranges both wide and deep to explore the events that shaped Lincoln and the way he shaped events in turn. I have read a great deal of first and second hand material about Lincoln and his era but found surprises appearing on almost every page. (For instance, I did not know that the disease that robbed Jefferson Davis of the sight in his left eye was Herpes.) My only concern was that it seemed the author got caught in a deadline crunch, since there are several glaring editorial mistakes in the last third.
August 12, 2020
Sidney Blumenthal has written an American gem in All The Powers of Earth about the violent period (1856-1860) preceding the civil war. Ostensibly about the rise of Lincoln, this volume chronicles the tumult and political vituperation of the era. Bloody Kansas, Dred Scott, Preston Brooks caning of Charles Sumner and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Lincoln’s seven debates with Douglas catapult him to national fame and doom Stephen Douglas and the Democratic Party. Reads like a first hand account with engrossing portraits of the leading characters of 19th c America.
October 20, 2019
Blumenthal’s research is, as usual, almost intimidating in its detail and erudition. His quotes - from almost every key character of the period - depict a raw Lincoln, constantly at odds with the nation surrounding him as history brings him, unexpectedly to power. Douglas is an especially sympathetic character in the “play” - egotistical, patriotic and, above all, alcoholic....a truly complex individual made real by Blumenthal’s depiction.
September 19, 2020
Wow!There was a lot of information packed into this one!It is very detailed and well worth the listen.I learned things I did not know,or had forgotten.Jack de Golia was a wonderful narrator.I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.'
October 9, 2019
One of the best in the series.
March 11, 2020
Extraordinary and brilliant!
August 12, 2020
Love your leaders. And get ready to die when they ask you to. For the time, just pay your taxes on time, so Blumenthal of the World could unite all expenses paid.
December 5, 2022
using it for my term paper
July 11, 2020
Very strong. Hard for this history junkie to put down.
We learn things we hadn't known before, about the utter mess that was the Buchanan administration. About the strength of the efforts within the Republican party to back Douglas over Lincoln in the Illinois Senate race of 1858. What were they thinking? About the hollowness of Douglas' ideology. "Popular Sovereignty" also called "Squatter Sovereignty", a more apt term, don't you think? An evasion of the issue that could not be evaded.
We see the attempt by Lincoln to claim Jefferson as supporting the cause of freeing the slaves. Wouldn't go over today, too much contradictory information on that, yet in its time, that was successful.
I don't much like Blumenthal as a modern political figure, but he's a great history writer.
We learn things we hadn't known before, about the utter mess that was the Buchanan administration. About the strength of the efforts within the Republican party to back Douglas over Lincoln in the Illinois Senate race of 1858. What were they thinking? About the hollowness of Douglas' ideology. "Popular Sovereignty" also called "Squatter Sovereignty", a more apt term, don't you think? An evasion of the issue that could not be evaded.
We see the attempt by Lincoln to claim Jefferson as supporting the cause of freeing the slaves. Wouldn't go over today, too much contradictory information on that, yet in its time, that was successful.
I don't much like Blumenthal as a modern political figure, but he's a great history writer.
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