Synopses & Reviews
Sometimes, in American politics, a conflict becomes so heated and divisiveand#8212;as the conflict over slavery didand#8212;that the ground is set for civil war. Abraham Lincoln, a pragmatist who wanted to rebuild national unity, ran up against the radicals in his own party who insisted on a rigid solution, regardless of the cost to the country.
Review
and#8220;[Williams] tells the story of the war behind the war.and#160; It brings within easy compass the struggle which went on ceaselessly between the so-called and#8216;radicalsand#8217; in Congress and in the Republican Party, who sought to make the war an instrument for social revolution in the south, and Lincoln, whose aim at the start, in common with most northern conservatives, was simply to preserve the union.and#8221;and#8212;Christian Century