Daniel Webster (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS361 dimensional, complex personality: "a pacificist turned soldier, an educator turned politician, a preacher turned economist, a man of essentially literary tastes cast in the role of party chieftain, a husband who, at length, fell in love with his wife, and a man racked by self-doubts who was, at the same time, convinced of his high destiny." Peskin's biography does not resolve these contradictions; it explores them. Each of the crises in Garfield's life is examined thoroughly and objectively. In many cases Peskin's verdict is unfavorable: Garfield did maneuver to oust his rivals and become head of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute; he married one woman while he was in love with another; he lent his name to the fraudulent schemes of an oil swindler, exhibited a "disturbing lack of candor" about his relationship to the Credit Mobilier, and was guilty of influence peddling in the DeGolyer scandal. On other, and perhaps more significant, points Peskinfinds that the evidence exonerates Garfield. In undercutting his commanding officer, General William S . Rosecrans, his conduct was "not . . . dishonorable , only somewhat disingenuous." On the silver question he put principle ahead of self-interest. And "by most standards" Garfield was not guilty of undercutting John Sherman in order to promote his own presidential candidacy in 1880. If Peskin's judgments are mixed, it is because Garfield's character was mixed. Those who knew him well spoke of his warmth, his charm, and his learning. John Hay thought that his years of service in the Congress made Garfield "the best-trained, best-equipped president since John Quincy Adams." But even those who admired the man had to recognize "his old weakness, lack of moral pluck." "Smooth, ready, pleasant . . . , not very strong," was the verdict of Rutherford B. Hayes. Henry L. Dawes concluded that hewas "morally . . . invertebrate. Hehad no bony structure." Echoing the same idea, President Grant judged that Garfield "has shown that he is not possessed of the backbone of an angleworm." Since Garfield was such a creampuff character, one is bound to ask whether he is worth the extraordinary amount of attention that has been lavished on him during the past few years. The answer clearly has to be "No." But, equally clearly, until the publication of Peskin's definitive biography it was not possible to be sure that there was less to James A. Garfield than met the eye. David Herbert Donald Harvard University Daniel Webster. By Irving H. Bartlett. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978. Pp. xii, 333. $12.95.) Since 1966 no fewer than five book-length, scholarly monographs have 362CIVIL WAR HISTORY appeared, dealing with various aspects of the career of Daniel Webster. Irving Bartlett's book represents, in part, a gathering together of the findings of at least four of those studies in a single volume. As such it is largely successful. Using as well the invaluable Microfilm Edition ofthe Papers of Daniel Webster, Bartlett produces a readable, generally accurate account of Webster's public life from the time he first entered politics as a young Portsmouth, New Hampshire lawyer, opposing Jefferson's Embargo, until his death 44 years later in 1852. In this respect the book should certainly supersede the earlier full-length biographies, including those by Henry Cabot Lodge, Claude Fuess, and Richard Current. Bartlett's purpose, however, was to do something more: in fact to add a completely new dimension to our understanding ofhis subject. Noting at the outset that Webster was many things to many people, but above all to his admirers the "Godlike defender" and to his enemies "Black Dan"—a deeply flawed and finally corrupt défiler of all that he claimed to stand for—Bartletthopes to come to terms with both sides of this dual "image," no less than with "the man behind the image, who succeeded, failed, laughed, loved, and sometimes found himself ensnared in webs of his own making but beyond his understanding." This is a tall order, and a variety of strategies are called into play to fill it. In a manner surprisingly reminiscent of Lodge's treatment almost a century ago, Bartlett appears to find both parts of the Godlike-Black Dan construct about...