Synopses & Reviews
In this, his last work, J. David Greenstone provides an important new analysis of American liberalism and of Lincoln's unique contribution to the nation's political life. Greenstone addresses Louis Hartz's well-known claim that a tradition of liberal consensus has characterized American political life from the time of the founders. Although he acknowledges the force of Hartz's thesis, Greenstone nevertheless finds it inadequate for explaining prominent instances of American political discord, most notably the Civil War.
Originally published in 1993.
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Review
"A complex, fascinating, and illuminating book. Its argument, to oversimplify, is that, perhaps better than any American leader in our country's history, Lincoln was able to combine a passionate commitment to changing the country with the political realism required to change the country without tearing it apart."
--Father Andrew Greeley, Chicago Sun-Times
Review
"A useful example of the effective use of executive power in its account of how Lincoln succeeded in addressing the central failing of his day--slavery. Lincoln, Greenstone argues, created a moral consensus that placed the highest value on the preservation of the Union, a position with wide support in the North, while skillfully improvising a policy reflecting the principles in the Declaration of Independence that implicitly called for eliminating slavery."
--Thomas Byrne Edsall, The New York Review of Books
Review
"The central element in the Lincoln persuasion is a helf-secular, half-religious drive for redemption, a reformist politics aware of its limit. Lincoln's genius, Greenstone avers, was his ability to fashion out of the crisis of the union a solution which began to realize the nation's original promise of freedom. . . . a sustained tour de force which illuminates a good piece of American history. The book is, of course, utterly relevant in a society divided by conflict over the boundaries of market and state, private interests and public solidarities, entitlements and responsibilities."
--Norman Birnbaum, Contemporary Sociology
Review
"
The Lincoln Persuasion is one of the most important works in American political culture in the past fifty years."
--Philip Abbott, The Review of Politics
Synopsis
"This book offers a major reinterpretation of American political ideas. J. David Greenstone recovers the strand of positive liberty, both as fact and as norm, within American liberalism; he shows the inadequencies of the negative liberty perspective in dealing with slavery; and he reinterprets the Lincoln within the positive liberty tradition. The volume is unfailingly thoughtful, gracefully written, and displays the complexity of Greenstone's engagement with political matters."--Michael Rogin, University of California, Berkeley
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [287]-297) and index. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of Contents
| List of Charts and Tables | |
| Acknowledgments | |
| Editor's Note | |
| Introduction to the Book | |
1 | The Lincoln Myth Reconsidered | 9 |
| Lincoln's Ulterior Motives | 12 |
| Lincoln's Devotion to Liberty and Union | 16 |
| Lincoln's Principle of Action | 18 |
| Lincoln's Motives and Principle | 21 |
| The Problem of Political Conflict: Lincoln vs. Douglas | 26 |
| Lincoln's Principle as a Political Solution | 31 |
2 | American Political Culture: Liberal Consensus or Liberal Polarity? | 35 |
| American Exceptionalism: The Consensus Thesis | 36 |
| A Philosophical Critique: Multiple Meanings and Descriptions | 48 |
| The Bipolarity in American Liberalism | 50 |
| The Liberal Polarity: Conflicting Dispositions | 63 |
3 | Adams and Jefferson: A Shared Liberalism | 71 |
| Friendship, Rivalry, Friendship | 71 |
| The Problem of Adams's Liberalism | 73 |
| The Multiple Declensions of New England Culture | 76 |
| The Founding Synthesis | 78 |
| Equality and the Liberal Polarity | 90 |
4 | Adams, Jefferson, and the Slavery Paradox | 95 |
| The Slavery Paradox | 96 |
| Liberalism and the Issue of Slavery | 105 |
5 | William Leggett: Process, Utility, and Laissez-Faire | 124 |
| Jacksonian Politics and Humanist Liberal Principles | 124 |
| Laissez-Faire: Leggett's Attenuated Republicanism | 127 |
| Leggett's Humanist Liberalism: Preferences and Process | 130 |
| Slavery | 133 |
6 | Stephen A. Douglas and Popular Sovereignty | 140 |
| Jacksonian Politics and Humanist Liberalism | 141 |
| Douglas's Attenuated Republicanism | 145 |
| Preference Coordination | 148 |
| Slavery | 150 |
7 | Martin Van Buren's Humanist Liberal Theory of Party | 154 |
| Jacksonian Democrat and Humanist Liberal | 155 |
| Van Buren's Humanist Liberal Theory of Party | 158 |
| Van Buren's Attenuated Republicanism | 169 |
| Slavery | 172 |
| Van Buren's Failure: Slavery and Preference Coordination | 179 |
8 | John Quincy Adams | 191 |
| Adams's Whiggish Loyalties | 192 |
| Adams and Slavery | 196 |
| Adams's Liberalism | 198 |
| Reform Liberalism and Politics | 205 |
9 | Lincoln and the North's Commitment to Liberty and Union | 222 |
| Douglas: Negative Liberty and a Quantitative Union | 223 |
| Webster: Positive Liberty and a Qualitative Union | 226 |
| Lincoln on Liberty and Union: A Conceptual Connection | 230 |
| Conclusion: Rule Ambiguity and Liberal Politics | 240 |
10 | Lincoln's Political Humanitarianism: Moral Reform and the Covenant Tradition | 244 |
| Lincoln's Political Ethic | 245 |
| Lincoln's Protestant Ethic | 258 |
| Conclusion: Lincoln's Piety | 282 |
| Epilogue | 284 |
| References | 287 |
| Index | 299 |