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book: Team of Rivals
Aug. 5th, 2009 06:26 pmTeam of Rivals is a biography of Lincoln and I read it because Sam and Rai recommended it so highly, and because, residing for the time being in the South, I wanted to learn something about the civil war.
This book is lovingly written, beautifully composed, exhaustively researched (121 pages of end-notes!), and refreshingly reader-friendly. It stands best as a comprehensive characterization of the 'rivals', those men--Seward, Chase, Bates, and Lincoln--who vied for the presidential nomination of 1860 and whom Lincoln brought into his cabinet after his election, and those whom surrounded these men-Edwin Stanton, Kate Chase, Mary Lincoln, etc. Above all, the book is a testimony to Lincoln's unique character: his infinite magnanimity, moral steadfastness, political adroitness, his ambition and his patience.
I found myself, of course, picking from the characters, to select my own, choosing which might be most imitable. Of course there is Abraham Lincoln himself--but that level of serenity and total upstandingness seems totally unobtainable. I would choose, instead, Stanton--who barricaded himself into his office in resistance to his termination by Lincoln's successor, Pres. Andrew Johnson, and who died four days after his appointment to the supreme court.
Comparisons of Lincoln to Obama by the reader are unavoidable. Senator from Illinois, meteoric rise to stardom, etc...
My favorite chapters are the first and the last. Particularly the last, the epilogue, wherein Things Fall Apart for the Rivals.
I have never shed tears for any text, but Chapter 27, in which Lincoln is assassinated, brought me close.
The descriptions of the "circuit" courts of the early 19th century, in which the entire bar traveled from town to town trying the cases, is particularly delightful - the comradely easily makes one nostalgic for the era, everyone gathering fireside by the tavern hearth for Lincoln's storytelling. It makes one wish to write diaries, letters, and telegrams.
But, as a biography of Lincoln, and an entirely uncritical one, this text brought me no satisfaction in understanding the South. The machinations of the Confederacy are not mentioned. Lincoln waged war so "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" -- but by this logic, it seems to me, the South should have been allowed to amicably secede. Abolition of slavery was, of course, in the hearts and minds, but was ulimately realized under the practical justification of military necessity -- that millions of then-enslaved blacks would fight for the union and, in doing so, also totally demoralize the South.
The civil war was initiated and supported on the premise that it was necessary for the American Experiment -- democratic government -- to persist. But the use of force to maintain that union is obviously contradictory. This book sheds no light on this apparent paradox.
A legitimate review: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/06mcpherson.html
On my reading list: Dreams from my Father (Obama), Infinite Jest (DFW), Poor Man's Provence.
This book is lovingly written, beautifully composed, exhaustively researched (121 pages of end-notes!), and refreshingly reader-friendly. It stands best as a comprehensive characterization of the 'rivals', those men--Seward, Chase, Bates, and Lincoln--who vied for the presidential nomination of 1860 and whom Lincoln brought into his cabinet after his election, and those whom surrounded these men-Edwin Stanton, Kate Chase, Mary Lincoln, etc. Above all, the book is a testimony to Lincoln's unique character: his infinite magnanimity, moral steadfastness, political adroitness, his ambition and his patience.
I found myself, of course, picking from the characters, to select my own, choosing which might be most imitable. Of course there is Abraham Lincoln himself--but that level of serenity and total upstandingness seems totally unobtainable. I would choose, instead, Stanton--who barricaded himself into his office in resistance to his termination by Lincoln's successor, Pres. Andrew Johnson, and who died four days after his appointment to the supreme court.
Comparisons of Lincoln to Obama by the reader are unavoidable. Senator from Illinois, meteoric rise to stardom, etc...
My favorite chapters are the first and the last. Particularly the last, the epilogue, wherein Things Fall Apart for the Rivals.
I have never shed tears for any text, but Chapter 27, in which Lincoln is assassinated, brought me close.
The descriptions of the "circuit" courts of the early 19th century, in which the entire bar traveled from town to town trying the cases, is particularly delightful - the comradely easily makes one nostalgic for the era, everyone gathering fireside by the tavern hearth for Lincoln's storytelling. It makes one wish to write diaries, letters, and telegrams.
But, as a biography of Lincoln, and an entirely uncritical one, this text brought me no satisfaction in understanding the South. The machinations of the Confederacy are not mentioned. Lincoln waged war so "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" -- but by this logic, it seems to me, the South should have been allowed to amicably secede. Abolition of slavery was, of course, in the hearts and minds, but was ulimately realized under the practical justification of military necessity -- that millions of then-enslaved blacks would fight for the union and, in doing so, also totally demoralize the South.
The civil war was initiated and supported on the premise that it was necessary for the American Experiment -- democratic government -- to persist. But the use of force to maintain that union is obviously contradictory. This book sheds no light on this apparent paradox.
A legitimate review: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/06mcpherson.html
On my reading list: Dreams from my Father (Obama), Infinite Jest (DFW), Poor Man's Provence.
