The Long Pursuit
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15
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In this compelling narrative, renowned historian Roy Morris, Jr., expertly offers a new angle on two of America's most towering politicians and the intense personal rivalry that transformed both them and the nation they sought to lead in the dark days leading up to the Civil War.For the better part of two decades, Stephen Douglas was the most famous and controversial politician in the United States, a veritable "steam engine in britches." Abraham Lincoln was merely Douglas's most persistent rival within their adopted home state of Illinois, known mainly for his droll sense of humor, bad jokes, and slightly nutty wife.But from the time they first set foot in the Prairie State in the early 1830s, Lincoln and Douglas were fated to be political competitors. The Long Pursuit tells the dramatic story of how these two radically different individuals rose to the top rung of American politics, and how their personal rivalry shaped and altered the future of the nation during its most convulsive era. Indeed, had it not been for Douglas, who served as Lincoln's personal goad, pace horse, and measuring stick, there would have been no Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, no Lincoln presidency in 1860, and perhaps no Civil War six months later. For both men—and for the nation itself—the stakes were that high.Not merely a detailed political study, The Long Pursuit is also a compelling look at the personal side of politics on the rough-and-tumble western frontier. It shows us a more human Lincoln, a bare-knuckles politician who was not above trading on his wildly inaccurate image as a humble "rail-splitter," when he was, in fact, one of the nation's most successful railroad attorneys. And as the first extensive biographical study of Stephen Douglas in more than three decades, the book presents a long-overdue reassessment of one of the nineteenth century's more compelling and ultimately tragic figures, the one-time "Little Giant" of American politics.
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This is a readable portrait of the Lincoln/Douglas relationship although it doesn't really appear to have required much independent research on the part of the author, which, I doubt any is really needed, at least as far as Lincoln goes. You go look at the notes and it's just “I read some Douglas books and some Lincoln books and here you go for those of you interested in a summarization,” pretty much. Some takeaways:
1) the racism of the famous L-D debates on both sides; while Douglas is race baiting, Lincoln did not cover himself in glory either. The Lincoln we revere in hindsight was not the Lincoln of 1858.
2) I was particularly interested in the 1860 election and Douglas's last ditch attempt to stop the secession movement. Douglas was the only one campaigning for the office (it was not customary at the time for nominees to do so), but to some degree the general election result was predetermined. The breakup of the Democratic party convention was the real contest, which this book goes into. The election of a Republican president seems to have been the desired result brought about by pro-secession Southerners who, by breaking up the Democratic party, made it impossible for a Democrat to win the electoral college. Douglas's hopes for becoming president relied on no candidate receiving a majority and himself being the compromise choice by the House of Representatives.
3) it's an interesting counterfactual to think about what role Douglas might have played during the War if he hadn't dropped dead only a few months into Lincoln's term. Would he have “grown” in the direction Lincoln did? His life and politics were not very praiseworthy until the very last moment, so who knows. He narrowly missed some interesting times.
