Robert W. Johannsen

Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians For the quarter-century before 1860 Stephen A. Douglas was a dominant figure on the American political scene, far outshadowing Abraham Lincoln. This first paperback printing of Robert Johannsen's authoritative biography features a new preface. "At once a work of enormous scholarship and of deep insight. Here, for the first time, is the full story of a great career, told with such skill that we can now understand why Abraham Lincoln found the 'Little Giant' the most formidable political rival he ever faced." -- David H. Donald, author of Lincoln and two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize "Well-organized and marvelously detailed. . . . The book demonstrates the virtues of large-scale, straightforward narrative biography at its best. Its completeness and objectivity will make it the standard authority for many years to come." -- Richard N. Current, The New York Times Book Review "Superb. . . . Will doubtless stand as the definitive biography of Stephen A. Douglas for this generation." -- Hans L. Trefousse, The Journal of American History "An impressive work--impressive in scope, in research, and in maturity of understanding. . . . Johannsen has constructed a biography that is rich in detail and full of conviction." -- James Z. Rabun, The Journal of Southern History "Should take its place in the tradition of magisterial biographies . . . in which so much of the best writing on American history is to be found." -- Harry V. Jaffa, National Review "The research is amazingly exhaustive and the writing is unusually readable. . . . Outstanding biography of a quality not often matched." -- LeRoy H. Fischer, Manuscripta Supported by the Dickerson Fund of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln declared his hatred for the institution of slavery, likening his feelings of opposition to those of the abolitionists. Although the fact that Lincoln always disliked slavery is indisputable, the idea that he always opposed it with the zeal and fervor of the abolitionists remains questionable. Only four years prior to his bold declaration, Lincoln admittedly paid little attention to slavery, viewing it as only a minor issue. But in the six years preceding his presidency, his antislavery stance underwent dramatic change. Fueled by political ambition, Lincoln's argument against slavery and his prescription for dealing with it moved from what he initially labeled a middle-ground stance to a more radical position. Robert W. Johannsen's Lincoln, the South, and Slavery traces the political dimension of Lincoln's antislavery stance as it evolved from the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 to his election as president in 1860.Whereas previous scholars have largely ignored the political character of Lincoln's antislavery argument, Johannsen sees Lincoln as an astute and ambitious politician whose statements where shaped and directed by the time's ever-changing political exigencies and considerations. Johannsen does not demean the quality of Lincoln's sincerity or downgrade the importance of his moral convictions on the slavery issue, but he does suggest that politics played a larger role than previously acknowledged in the form these convictions took.The four chapters that compose this work connect Lincoln's position with his attitude toward the South and Southerners, from his initial appeal to Southerners at a time when he sought to revitalize the dying Whig party, through his deepening involvement in the Republican party, to his final belief that the South and Southern interests no longer needed to be considered as factors determining his national political success. Johannsen focuses on Lincoln's debut in 1854 as an antislavery speaker, on the development of his stand for the ultimate extinction of slavery, on his espression of the doctrine of the irrepressible conflict, and finally on Lincoln's and the South's perceptions of each other in 1860.As no other work has done, Lincoln, the South, and Slavery shows how Lincoln, in response to the demands of politics, became increasingly anti-slavery and anti-Southern during the 1850s. It will be a welcome contribution to the ongoing debate about the enigma of Lincoln and about his role in the coming of the Civil War.

For the romantic generation of Americans in the mid-nineteenth century, the Mexican war was a grand exercise in self-identity: it legitimized the young republic's convictions of mission and destiny to a doubting world. This book examines the war's place in the popular imagination of the era. The Mexican War was the first American conflict to be widely reported in the press, as well as the first to be waged against an alien in a distant, strange, and exotic land. For mid-century Americans, the author shows, the war provided a window onto the outside world, promoting an awareness - if not an understanding - of a people and a land unlike any they had known before. Drawing on military and travel accounts, newspaper dispatches, and a host of other sources, the author recreates the mood and feeling of the period - its unbounded optimism and its patriotic pride.