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CONTENTS
Epigraph
Timeline of Major Events
Cast of Major Characters
PART ONE THE PRESENT CRISIS
ONE Things Fall Apart
TWO Vaulting Ambition
THREE The Spirit of Violence
FOUR War to the Knife
FIVE The Puritan as Prophet
SIX Cyclops
SEVEN A Voice from the Grave
EIGHT The Harlot Slavery
NINE The Assassination of Charles Sumner
TEN Arguments of the Chivalry
ELEVEN Exterminating Angel
TWELVE Democracy in America
PART TWO THE RISE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
THIRTEEN Creation
FOURTEEN Miss Fancy
FIFTEEN The Forbidden Word
SIXTEEN Vice President Lincoln
SEVENTEEN The Birther Campaign
EIGHTEEN The Great Awakening
NINETEEN The White Man
TWENTY All the Powers of Earth
TWENTY-ONE The Wizard of Mississippi
TWENTY-TWO The Unmaking of the President
TWENTY-THREE A House Divided
TWENTY-FOUR The Higher Object
TWENTY-FIVE The Moral Lights
TWENTY-SIX The Phoenix
TWENTY-SEVEN Icarus
TWENTY-EIGHT This Guilty Land
TWENTY-NINE Witch Hunt
THIRTY Right Makes Might
THIRTY-ONE Walpurgisnacht
THIRTY-TWO The Railsplitter
THIRTY-THREE The Wigwam
THIRTY-FOUR A Fallen Star
THIRTY-FIVE Wide-Awake
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustration Credits
For John Ritch and Christina Ritch
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, JULY 4, 1776
“In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him; ambition follows, and philosophy follows, and the Theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.”
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, JUNE 26, 1857
“At any time, the South can raise, equip, and maintain in the field, a larger army than any Power of the earth can send against her, and an army of soldiers–men brought up on horseback, with guns in their hands. . . . No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king. . . . The Senator from New York said yesterday that the whole world had abolished slavery. Aye, the name, but not the thing; all the powers of the earth cannot abolish that.”
SENATOR JAMES HENRY HAMMOND, OF SOUTH CAROLINA, MARCH 4, 1858
“Our best people do not understand the danger. They are besotted. They have compromised so long that they think principles of right and wrong have no more any power on this earth.”
JOHN BROWN, 1859
TIMELINE OF MAJOR EVENTS
March 4, 1853:
May 30, 1854:
Kansas-Nebraska Act passes the Congress
October 4, 1854:
Lincoln speaks against the Kansas-Nebraska Act at the Illinois House of Representatives
February 8, 1855:
Lincoln, the Whig candidate for the U.S. Senate, recognizes he lacks the votes in the state legislature to win, and throws his support to the antislavery Democrat Lyman Trumbull to defeat the pro-Douglas candidate
August 16, 1855:
Andrew Reeder, the first territorial governor of Kansas, removed by President Pierce for his objections to fraudulent elections
September 28, 1855:
New York Republican Party created out of fusion of Whigs, Democrats, and Free Soilers
October 7, 1855:
John Brown arrives in Kansas
October 23, 1855:
Free state settlers meet at Topeka to adopt a constitution banning slavery in the territory, elect a governor, and designate Andrew Reeder its congressional delegate
November 1855:
Wakarusa War in Kansas between free state and proslavery forces
December 25, 1855:
Christmas dinner at Maryland home of Francis P. Blair to found the national Republican Party
February 22, 1856:
The Know Nothing Party, or American Party, nominates former president Millard Fillmore as its presidential candidate
February 22, 1856:
First national convention of the Republican Party takes place at Pittsburgh
February 22, 1856:
Lincoln writes the platform at a meeting of antislavery editors at Decatur as the founding document of the Illinois Republican Party and calls for its first convention
March 12, 1856:
Stephen A. Douglas submits his report on Kansas to the Senate
May 19–20 1856:
Charles Sumner delivers his speech to the Senate, “The Crime Against Kansas”
May 21, 1856:
Missouri Ruffians led by former senator David Rice Atchison sack the Kansas free state capital of Lawrence
May 22, 1856:
Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina canes Charles Sumner in the Senate
May 24–25, 1856:
John Brown and his men murder five proslavery settlers at Pottawatomie, Kansas
May 29, 1856:
Lincoln delivers his “Lost Speech” as the keynote of the foundi
ng convention of the Illinois Republican Party
June 6, 1856:
James Buchanan defeats Stephen A. Douglas at the Democratic Party national convention to win nomination as the presidential candidate
June 19, 1856:
John C. Frémont nominated as the first Republican Party presidential candidate; Lincoln’s name put into nomination for vice president but loses to William Dayton, a former U.S. senator from New Jersey
November 4, 1856:
James Buchanan elected president
March 4, 1857:
Inauguration of James Buchanan as president
March 6, 1857:
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney issues decision in the Dred Scott case
June 12, 1857:
Douglas defends the Dred Scott decision in a speech at Springfield
June 15, 1857:
Fraudulent election in Kansas elects proslavery delegates to a constitutional convention
June 26, 1857:
Lincoln assails the Dred Scott decision in a speech at Springfield, declaring of the captive slave, “All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him.”
August 24, 1857:
The Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company collapses, triggering an economic panic
October 19, 1857:
Proslavery delegates meeting at Lecompton to ratify a Kansas constitution legalizing slavery
November 26, 1857:
Kansas territorial governor Robert J. Walker confronts President Buchanan at the White House on the Lecompton Constitution and is rebuffed
December 3, 1857:
Douglas visits Buchanan at the White House, demands he reject the Lecompton Constitution as a violation of “popular sovereignty,” and is threatened by the president that he will be “crushed”
December 8, 1857:
Buchanan endorses the Lecompton Constitution in his first annual message to the Congress
Douglas denounces Buchanan in a speech before the Senate
December 11, 1857:
Frederick P. Stanton, acting territorial governor serving in Walker’s absence, dismissed by Buchanan
December 15, 1857:
Walker resigns as territorial governor
December 21, 1857:
Fraudulent referendum in Kansas approves the Lecompton Constitution
January 4, 1858:
Free state Kansas legislature conducts a referendum that overwhelmingly rejects the Lecompton Constitution
February 2, 1858:
Buchanan submits Lecompton Constitution to the Congress to approve for admission of Kansas as a slave state
March 4, 1858:
Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina declares in a speech, “Cotton is king”
April 1, 1858:
The House of Representatives rejects the admission of Kansas as a state under the Lecompton Constitution
April 30, 1858:
The Congress passes the English bill stipulating a new referendum on the Lecompton Constitution
June 17, 1858:
Lincoln delivers his “house divided” speech in accepting the Republican nomination for the Senate
August 2, 1858:
Kansas voters by a large margin reject the Lecompton Constitution
August 21, 1858:
Lincoln-Douglas debate, Ottawa, Illinois
August 27, 1858:
Lincoln-Douglas debate, Freeport
September 15, 1858:
Lincoln-Douglas debate, Jonesboro
September 18, 1858:
Lincoln-Douglas debate, Charleston
October 7, 1858:
Lincoln-Douglas debate, Galesburg
October 13, 1858:
Lincoln-Douglas debate, Quincy
October 15, 1858:
Lincoln-Douglas debate, Alton
November 2, 1858:
Douglas reelected, Lincoln defeated
November 4, 1858:
The Illinois Gazette of Lacon publishes an editorial: “Abraham Lincoln for President in 1860”
January 5, 1859:
Inner circle of Lincoln men meet at the Illinois State Capitol and propose running Lincoln for president or vice president
April 7, 1859:
Illinois Republican State Committee meets at Bloomington, decides to support Lincoln as a presidential candidate and to keep him in the background for the moment
April 1859:
Lincoln secretly buys a German language newspaper, the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger
September 1859:
Douglas publishes an article in Harper’s Monthly, “Popular Sovereignty in the Territories”
September 13, 1859:
Senator David C. Broderick, Democrat of California, a Douglas ally, killed in a duel with California Supreme Court chief justice David Terry, ally of Senator William Gwin, Democrat of California, an enemy of Douglas
September 1859:
Lincoln speaks in Ohio cities, following Douglas, in off-year election campaign; Republicans sweep statewide offices
October 12, 1859:
Lincoln receives a telegram inviting him to speak to a group of Republicans in New York
October 16–18, 1859:
John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry
December 2, 1859:
John Brown hanged
February 27, 1860:
Lincoln poses for a photograph at the studio of Mathew Brady in New York City
February 27, 1860:
Lincoln delivers speech at the Cooper Union: “Right makes might”
April 30, 1860:
Seven Southern state delegations walk out of the Democratic Party national convention at Charleston to stop Douglas’s nomination and protest the failure to endorse the Alabama Platform in favor of the extension of slavery to the territories
May 3, 1860:
The Democratic Party national convention at Charleston adjourns without nominating a candidate
May 9, 1860:
Illinois Republican convention nominates Lincoln for president; he is dubbed “The Railsplitter”
May 10, 1860:
Constitutional Union Party convention nominates John Bell of Tennessee for president and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for vice president
May 18, 1860:
Republican Party national convention at Chicago nominates Lincoln for president
June 18–23, 1860:
Democratic Party national convention reconvenes at Baltimore, refusing to seat Southern delegations that had bolted at Charleston; nominates Douglas for president
June 23, 1860:
National Democratic Party convention at Baltimore, comprised of Southern bolters, nominates Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for president and Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon for vice president
November 6, 1860:
Lincoln elected president
December 20, 1860:
South Carolina secedes from the Union
CAST OF MAJOR CHARACTERS
PRESIDENTS
Zachary Taylor, 12th President
Millard Fillmore, 13th President
Franklin Pierce, 14th President
James Buchanan, 15th President
THE SENATE
David Rice Atchison, Missouri, Democrat, president pro tempore, F Street Mess
Edward D. Baker, Oregon, Republican, former Illinois congressman and friend of Lincoln
James A. Bayard, Delaware, Democrat
Judah P. Benjamin, Louisiana, Democrat
Jesse Bright, Indiana, Democrat, president pro tempore
David C. Broderick, California, Democrat
Andrew Butler, South Carolina, Democrat, F Street Mess
Simon Cameron, Pennsylvania, Democrat/Know Nothing/Republican
Salmon P. Chase, Ohio, Republican
Clement Clay, Alabama, Democrat
John J. Crittenden, Kentucky, Whig/Know Nothing
Jefferson Davis, Mississippi, Democrat
Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois, Democrat
William Pitt Fessenden, Maine, Republican
Henry S. Foote, Mississippi, Democrat
John C. Frémont, California, Republican candidate for president 1856
William M. Gwin, California, Democrat
John P. Hale, New Hampshire, Republican
James Henry Hammond, South Carolina, Democrat, former governor
Robert M.T. Hunter, Virginia, Democrat, F Street Mess
Preston King, New York, Republican
Joseph Lane, Oregon, Democrat, National Democratic candidate for vice president 1860
James M. Mason, Virginia, Democrat, F Street Mess
William Seward, New York, Republican
John Slidell, Louisiana, Democrat
Charles Sumner, Massachusetts, Republican
Lyman Trumbull, Illinois, antislavery Democrat, Republican
Benjamin Wade, Ohio, Republican
Henry Wilson, Massachusetts, Republican
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
William Barksdale, Mississippi, Democrat
Thomas Hart Benton, Missouri, Democrat
Francis P. Blair, Jr., Missouri, Republican
Preston S. Brooks, South Carolina, Democrat
Anson Burlingame, Massachusetts, Republican
Schuyler Colfax, Ohio, Republican
Henry A. Edmundson, Virginia, Democrat