The Worlds of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens - (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The Worlds of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens examines the political interests, relationships, and practices of two of the era's most prominent politicians as well as the political landscapes they inhabited and informed. Both men called Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, their home, and both were bachelors. During the 1850s, James Buchanan tried to keep the Democratic Party alive as the slavery debate divided his peers and the political system. Thaddeus Stevens, meanwhile, as Whig turned Republican, invested in the federal government to encourage economic development and social reform, especially antislavery and Republican Reconstruction"--

Book Synopsis

The Worlds of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens examines the political interests, relationships, and practices of two of the era's most prominent politicians as well as the political landscapes they inhabited and informed. Both men called Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, their home, and both were bachelors. During the 1850s, James Buchanan tried to keep the Democratic Party alive as the slavery debate divided his peers and the political system. Thaddeus Stevens, meanwhile, as Whig turned Republican, invested in the federal government to encourage economic development and social reform, especially antislavery and Republican Reconstruction.

Considering Buchanan and Stevens's divergent lives alongside their political and social worlds reveals the dynamics and directions of American politics, especially northern interests and identities. While focusing on these individuals, the contributors also explore the roles of parties and patronage in informing political loyalties and behavior. They further track personal connections across lines of gender and geography and underline the importance of details like who regularly dined and conversed with whom, the complex social milieu of Washington, the role of rumor in determining political allegiances, and the ways personality and failing relationships mattered in a hothouse of national politics fueled by slavery and expansion.

The essays in The Worlds of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens collectively invite further consideration of how parties, personality, place, and private lives influenced the political interests and actions of an age affected by race, religion, region, civil war, and reconstruction.

Review Quotes

Buchanan is far from neglected, but this manuscript gives us new and valuable perspectives on the man in terms of politics and foreign policy, but particularly his personal relationships with friends and fellow politicos. The editors have been eclectic in crafting this worthy collection of essays... We have foreign policy and politics, rooted in traditional and non-traditional approaches, combined with chapters dealing with race, class, and gender. Clearly written and often provocative.--John Belohlavek, author of Broken Glass: Caleb Cushing and the Shattering of the Union

Those tempted to dismiss the likes of James Buchanan as a hopelessly outdated and uninteresting subject will find the will to resist that temptation strengthened by this volume. Putting Buchanan and Stevens together allows the authors and editors to incisively explore the interrelationship between personality, partisanship, and place. Conceiving of them as answering to border state constituents as well as operating in the socially distinctive capital of an expanding nation leads to real steps forward in understanding both figures. And in the essays, the scholarly talents of a stellar lineup of historians offer multiple insights on these figures and the tumultuous and complex world they inhabited and helped shape. Putting the themes of gender and relationship front and center allows this volume to productively and repeatedly connect the personal and the political.--Matthew Mason, author of Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic

Until recently, James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens had only two things in common: they both called Lancaster, Pennsylvania, home, and they both had gotten a bum historical rap. As scholars reclaimed and celebrated Reconstruction's more radical goals of racial equality, Stevens' reputation improved accordingly. On the other hand, Buchanan's approval rating today remains about the same as it was in 1861. It should surprise no one that the two were not friends; they seemed to inhabit two distinct worlds. The original and insightful essays in this collection bring these two worlds together, providing new insight on the politics of sectionalism and Civil War, the friendships and political allegiances of Washington, D.C., and how the world we inhabit today is one both men helped to shape.--Judith Giesburg, author of Sex and the Civil War: Soldiers, Pornography, and the Making of American Morality

About the Author

Michael J. Birkner is professor of history at Gettysburg College and author or editor of numerous books, including Samuel L. Southard: Jeffersonian Whig, McCormick of Rutgers: Scholar, Teacher, Public Historian, and The Governors of New Jersey.

Randall M. Miller is professor of history at St. Joseph's University and the author, coauthor, or coeditor of numerous books, including The Northern Home Front during the Civil War; Lincoln and Leadership: Military, Political, and Religious Decision Making; and The Birth of the Grand Old Party: The Republicans' First Generation.

John W. Quist is professor of history at Shippensburg University and the author of Michigan's War: The Civil War in Documents and Restless Visionaries: The Social Roots of Antebellum Reform in Alabama and Michigan.