Douglas R. Egerton - Year of Meteors

We are into the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. I plan to read in this important area of American history in the coming months.

This book is about the crucial 1860 presidential election. The Democrats split into two factions, North and South, over slavery, insuring a Republican victory. Senator Seward of New York was the odds-on favorite to win the nomination of the new Republican Party, but because of doubts about Seward's progressive stance on slavery (ability to win the border states) and because Lincoln had a shrewd promoter in the person his friend David Davis, the largely unknown Abraham Lincoln won the Republican nomination. It didn't hurt that the Republican convention was held in Chicago, which allowed Davis to pack the Wigwam (where the convention was held) with Lincoln supporters.

The author makes it clear that secession was inevitable and that there was nothing that Lincoln or anybody else could have done to stop it. The "fire-eaters," as Egerton calls the rabid secessionists, were determined to lead their states out of the Union regardless. No compromise was possible with these people. I did not realize that one of the key leaders of the fire-eaters was William Lowdnes Yancey of Alabama.

Stephen Douglas ignited the final drive toward toward disunion with his popular sovereignty docrine for Kansas/Nebraska. Douglas was a big race baiter---no doubt about it. But Egerton points out how Douglas spent his final days supporting Lincoln and doing everything he could,in vain as it turned out, to save the Union and prevent war.

Mr. Lincoln resolutely refused to back off from the his position and the position of his new party that slavery should be confined to where it already existed and should not be allowed to spread into the territories.

One side truly belived in slavery, that it was the natural and divine order of things, and one side believed that slavery was wrong. That was the essence of the rub, and so war was inevitable.

The author analyzes the election returns and says that there was no way Lincoln could have lost the election. As the Republican nominee, Lincoln was wired to win the 1860 presidential election. This is just what the secessionists wanted, for they wanted to split from the Union and form a new government that protected slavery, their only goal.