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"The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War -- a new perspective that puts the House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict. This [...] new perspective on the Civil War overturns the popular conception that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory and gives us a vivid account of the essential role Congress played in winning the war. Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress--Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham--Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history. From reinventing the nation's financial system to pushing President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves to the planning for Reconstruction, Congress undertook drastic measures to defeat the Confederacy, in the process laying the foundation for a strong central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century. Brimming with drama and outsized characters, Congress at War is also one of the most original books about the Civil War to appear in years and will change the way we understand the conflict." --… (altro)
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I pulled this off the new books shelf because we really tend to overestimate the presidential effect on our law-making system and there aren't a lot of available books on this subject and era.
For good reason.
It's really a lot to cover and it's hard to make it all interesting. Not that this didn't have it's good moments and figures, Thaddeus Stevens at the forefront. But it also wasn't an easy read and you don't feel the attachment for the people as you would in, say, a book from McCullough or Doris Goodwin. Being history instead of fiction, the concluding ascension of Johnson to the role of president is rather anti-climactic and slightly depressing.
I was highly amused to recognize 18th-century versions of "Fake News," "Voter Fraud," and "President is overstepping boundaries." Some things about politics manage to stay the same.
Final note: the exchange of party beliefs and values between the past and the future is glaring. It is only too obvious that groups are influenced by individuals and that none is immune from past errors. Nor are they all incapable of laudable decisions. ( )
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi.Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
I would not have perfect quiet always, especially in a republic. You never find quiet, except under a tyranny
– Sen. William Pitt Fessenden
The Angel of Liberty has one ear of the nation and the demons of slavery the other.
– Frederick Douglass
Dedica
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi.Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
To my forebears John Madigan, Patrick Madigan, and James Patrick Farrell volunteers for the Union, 1861 to 1865
Incipit
Citazioni
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By any traditional measure, James Buchanan was one of the best qualified men ever to hold the presidency. [. . .] As president, he behaved like sort of a maiden aunt, a national mollifier who dislike confrontation, and felt genuine distressed when states, like badly behaved children, where at each other's throats. (Chapter 1: “A Rope of Sand,” p.3, (Knopf, 2020))
President Buchanan remained supine. “Had this old mollusk become vertebrate, the theories by Darwin would have been confirmed,” [George Templedon] Strong scowled. (Chapter 2: “Let the War Come,” p.23, (Knopf, 2020))
Although the slave states represented only one-fourth of the free people of the United States, they had controlled the government for generations. But demographics ate away glacially at the slave holders' grip. [. . .] although with the support of Northern Democrats, they continued to dominate the government through the end of the decade [1850]. “You own the cabinet, you own the Senate, and you own the President of the United States as much as you own the servant on your own plantation,” Ben Wade remarked caustically on the Senate floor in December 1860. (Chapter 1: “A Rope of Sand,” p.8, (Knopf, 2020))
“Not only will states secede from the Union, but counties from states, and cities and towns from both; and this work of disintegration and dissolution will go on until the whole frame of society and government will be ingulfed in one bottomless and boundless chaos of ruin,” worried Rep. John McClernand of Illinois. (Chapter 2: “Let the War Come,” p.22, (Knopf, 2020))
[Ben Wade] acknowledged that racism was woven into the fabric of American's minds. “Men are not to blame for that,” he said, “but they are to blame if they suffer what they know to be prejudice to prevail on them to do injustice to anybody. (Chapter 2: “Let the War Come,” p.32, (Knopf, 2020))
Both [Thaddeus Stevens and Pitt Fessenden] could be harsh and imperious. Colleagues sometimes referred to Stevens as the chairman of the “Committee of Mean Ways,” while Fessenden was well-known to have “no patience for humbug and no tolerance for bores.” (Chapter 5: “The Clink of Coin,” p.76, (Knopf, 2020))
The editor of the newspaper in Vallandigham's boyhood town of New Lisbon wrote: “That arch-traitor and chief of Copperheads – that pimp of Jeff Davis and standing disgrace to his state, Clem Vallandigham is laid out cold and stark in the embrace of political death. He is dead, dead, dead – and a loyal people will bury him so deep in the mire of his own infamy that the stench from his putrid carcass will never offend the nostrils of good men.” This was wishful thinking. (Chapter 10: “The Slaves Must be With Us,” p.176, (Knopf, 2020))
Writes historian Jennifer L. Weber: “For all the good their [1864] platform did [George] McClellan and the Democratic Party, the leadership might as well have tied the general into a sack filled with rocks and thrown him into Lake Michigan.” (Chapter 19: “The People Decide,” p.315, (Knopf, 2020))
[George] McClellan's ineptitude aside, the Democrats compounded their campaign problems by their refusal to face the fact that what the Confederate leadership and doubtless a substantial majority of the white Southern public wanted was independence, not reunification. (Chapter 19: “The People Decide,” p.316, (Knopf, 2020))
The day after Atlanta's fall, Sherman wrote to Henry Halleck: “If the people raise a howl against my barbarity & cruelty, I will answer that war is war & not popularity seeking. If they want peace, they & their relations must stop war.” (Chapter 19: “The People Decide,” p.317, (Knopf, 2020))
Pithily remarked George Templeton Strong, “The Hon. Roger P. Chaney has earned the gratitude of his country by dying at last. Better late than never,” (Chapter 19: “The People Decide,” p.319, (Knopf, 2020))
Ultime parole
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Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi.Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
"The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War -- a new perspective that puts the House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict. This [...] new perspective on the Civil War overturns the popular conception that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory and gives us a vivid account of the essential role Congress played in winning the war. Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress--Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham--Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history. From reinventing the nation's financial system to pushing President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves to the planning for Reconstruction, Congress undertook drastic measures to defeat the Confederacy, in the process laying the foundation for a strong central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century. Brimming with drama and outsized characters, Congress at War is also one of the most original books about the Civil War to appear in years and will change the way we understand the conflict." --
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1
For good reason.
It's really a lot to cover and it's hard to make it all interesting. Not that this didn't have it's good moments and figures, Thaddeus Stevens at the forefront. But it also wasn't an easy read and you don't feel the attachment for the people as you would in, say, a book from McCullough or Doris Goodwin. Being history instead of fiction, the concluding ascension of Johnson to the role of president is rather anti-climactic and slightly depressing.
I was highly amused to recognize 18th-century versions of "Fake News," "Voter Fraud," and "President is overstepping boundaries." Some things about politics manage to stay the same.
Final note: the exchange of party beliefs and values between the past and the future is glaring. It is only too obvious that groups are influenced by individuals and that none is immune from past errors. Nor are they all incapable of laudable decisions. (