In the Agora: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

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May 15, 2008

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Let's not grow nostalgic for a misremembered past; I found this review in The Atlantic surprising:

Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America
by Allen C. Guelzo (Simon & Schuster)
If you find the current presidential campaign depressing, this examination of the Lincoln-Douglas debates offers solace: it wasn't much better back then. The candidates talked past each other, dodged each other's questions, quoted each other out of context, directly insulted each other, cynically played the race card, and allowed surrogates to do their dirty work. But while Guelzo holds Lincoln and Douglas to strict account, he also delivers what may well be the deepest, most instructive study yet of how on-the-ground politics actually worked just before the Civil War and how ordinary people involved themselves with the nation's most fateful political question, the future of slavery.

Posted by Zach Wendling at May 15, 2008 07:04 PM

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There is all sorts of revison going on. Buchanan's latest book will prove interesting, I think, as he refers to Union Generals as war criminals (which, if we applied our latest thoughts to it they surely would be). I think he dredges up Grant's vies on the Mexican War as well. Churchill famously said, "We killed the wrong pig" but that was after the fact. Only hearsay on the book from short reviews....

Posted by: Anonymous at May 16, 2008 10:28 AM | permalink

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May 15, 2008

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

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