Chorus of the union How Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas set aside their rivalry to save the nation

The political rivalry between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas fades away as the Union's future grows uncertain in this insightful account from historian McClelland (Young Mr. Obama). At the time of their famed 1858 Illinois Senate debates, Douglas was America's most controversial politician, McClelland explains. His 1854 sponsorship of the Kansas-Nebraska Act had made him "the leading exponent of popular sovereignty," an idea meant to justify the spread of slavery to new territories that had instead polarized the nation even further and drawn Lincoln back into Illinois politics to oppose Douglas. McClelland's account of the debates highlights how Douglas "tied logic into knots" to prove popular sovereignty was an organizing principle of American democracy--indeed, the book's great strength is its revealing portrait of Douglas, whose maddening contradictions and "both sides-isms" made him enemies in every quarter, including among fellow Democrats. During the 1860 Democratic convention, when the party devolved into chaos as Southern delegates set up competing conventions in an effort to promote popular sovereignty, Douglas, who was running for president, opposed the upstarts. He later pledged loyalty to the Union in an 1861 speech which McClelland contends was "the greatest argument... ever delivered on setting aside partisanship." Artfully blending biography and history, McClelland gives the "Little Giant" his due as a unifier. It's a wise examination of America's divisive antebellum politics. (June)

The complete story of the remarkable rivalry and union of two giants of American politics. McClelland, author of Young Mr. Obama and Nothin' But Blue Skies, offers detailed and nuanced context to perhaps the most compelling and consequential rivalry in U.S. political history, which culminated in an alliance for a higher purpose. The most striking aspect of the book is the author's approach to the long, complex personal and political relationship between Lincoln and Douglas in the form of his astute analysis of 19th-century Illinois politics. He examines its significance as a microcosm of the nation, with distinct regions dominated by varied perspectives about slavery, abolitionism, and the role of the federal government as embodied by Lincoln and Douglas, themselves ambitious transplants to the state. McClelland explains Douglas' vision and work during his political career to make Chicago the great railroad hub that connected U.S. trade coast to coast, which figured in to his championing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and concept of popular sovereignty that drew Lincoln in to the 1858 Senate race. McClelland takes readers on a vivid journey through Illinois and the sites of the monumental series of debates, during which Douglas walked the political tightrope concerning slavery that secured his reelection yet created the opportunity for Lincoln to become a national candidate and defeat him for the presidency two years later. Rather than undermining the man who bested him for the prize he most coveted, Douglas honorably supported Lincoln during the end of that presidential election and subsequent final months of his life in ways unimaginable in contemporary American politics. As McClelland thoroughly demonstrates, Douglas was not merely gracious in defeat, but truly magnanimous. The rendering of this unique political saga and its implications is top-notch and worthy of a wide readership. An excellent combination of history and biography with relevance to today's political climate. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.