This book by Harold Holzer is an in-depth look at what Abraham Lincoln did and said, along with the events, between his election as president and his inauguration. This was, as the subtitle tells us in the words coined by Henry Adams, “The Great Secession Winter of 1860-1861, when the seven states of the Deep South passed ordinances of secession, illegitimately claiming they were no longer part of the United States. Holzer calls this “the most dangerous transition period in history.” [p. 5] He says, “While attending to the customary tasks of assembling a cabinet, rewarding political loyalists with federal appointments, and drafting an inaugural address alone–he employed no speechwriters–Lincoln was uniquely forced to confront the collapse of the country itself, with no power to prevent its disintegration. Bound to loyalty to the Republican party platform on which he had run and won, he could yield little to the majority that had in fact voted against him. During the four months–a full third of a year–between his election and inauguration, seven Southern states seceded from the Union, set up their own independent government, chose their own president, seized federal property, and dared Lincoln to resist their defiant independence. Within thirty days of the November 1860 popular vote–in which, notably, he failed to amass even 40 percent of the total cast, and earned none at all in much of the South–the minority president-elect could not even be certain that he would have a nation to lead. At a minimum, he faced the very real possibility that the Electoral College obligated to certify his victory might not be able to assemble safely, and that the formal inaugural pageant might be difficult to stage without both interference and considerable personal risk. Certainly no president ever faced such audacious impediments to taking lawful office.” [p. 5]
With this book, Holzer seeks “to paint the most accurate and detailed picture yet offered of America’s gravest crisis through the eyes of this altogether original leader–‘inexperienced in wielding great power’ yet astonishingly intuitive and gifted with remarkable instincts for communication–whom Americans chose to confront that crisis, then by tradition compelled to wait so long before doing so.” [p. 7] He continues, “One fact remains inarguable. Abraham Lincoln faced obstacles, challenges, citizen apprehension, disloyalty, even threats greater than that which confronted any president-elect before or since. He said so himself rather immodestly at the time and history has generated no convincing rebuttal since. He would somehow survive all of them and go on to preserve the country and substantially remake it by validating majority rule and eradicating the stain of human slavery. But first came the extraordinary transition that might easily have tainted or even doomed all that followed. This book aims to show how ingeniously Abraham Lincoln worked within the constraints of reigning political tradition to make certain that he had that opportunity, and how close he came to losing it.” [p. 7]
Chronologically organized, this book goes deeper into this limited time period than most other books about Lincoln, if not, indeed any other book about Lincoln. Along the way Holzer gives us the historical context of Lincoln’s actions by telling us what was going on and how Lincoln responded to the historical events happening. The Epilogue gives us the original text for Lincoln’s inaugural and traces the changes William H. Seward recommended that Lincoln accepted. Following the Epilogue is a section titled, “What Became Of …?” in which Holzer gives us a short summary of key players’s lives after the inauguration. Unfortunately there is a glaring error here. Holzer says of John Pope he “became a Civil War general. After early successes in the West, he led the Army of the Potomac to a disastrous rout at the Second Battle of Bull Run in 1862, and Lincoln relieved him of command.” [p. 481] Pope led the Army of Virginia. George B. McClellan had retained command of the Army of the Potomac, though one-by-one the component parts of that army were transferred to the Army of Virginia. Lincoln transferred Pope to command the Department of the Northwest.
The book is well grounded in primary sources, supplemented by some excellent secondary scholarship. Students of Abraham Lincoln and students looking at the beginning of the Civil War will find much to like about this work. I can highly recommend it.
Student of the American Civil War 