Lincoln's Dilemma: Blair, Sumner, and the Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in the Civil War Era. By Paul W. Escott. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014. 288 pp.

Abstract

Lincoln's Dilemma: Blair, Sumner, and Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in Civil War Era. By Paul W. Escott. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014. 288 pp. Paul Escott, in Lincoln's Dilemma, has woven a masterful narrative of social, political, and economic debates surrounding Lincoln's moves against during Civil War. While significant work has recently appeared tracing attitudes of Republican Party concerning institution of slavery, Escott's study contributes to literature through his analysis of nuances of race and racial identity that ran as significant undercurrents of political policy during this period. Facing broader national pressures, in particular, doctrine of white supremacy and shared contempt for African Americans (p. 4), Lincoln walked a fine line between members of his own party, in particular Charles Sumner and Montgomery Blair, over racial future of nation. Placing Lincoln's decisions surrounding as part of larger debate about race and racial identity that took place among ranks of Republican Party, Escott illustrates ways in which president's policies concerning race and reflected a growing feeling among northerners that slaves were people and that was wrong and un-American--even if these notions were fleeting manifestations of wartime progress (p. 13). The Republican Party that Lincoln joined was an amalgamation of strangely different elements. It contained men from different political backgrounds, and it combined convictions and anti-Black prejudices (p. 14). Among early converts to Republican fold, and key supporters of Lincoln, were Francis Preston Blair (and his sons, Frank and Montgomery) and Charles Sumner. Although opponents of slavery, Escott suggests that these men represented divides over race that existed within Republican Party. This was an issue that Lincoln was forced to contend with throughout war and that ultimately ran concurrently with every decision dealing with institution of slavery. Sumner was a radical when it came to issues of race, a supporter of racial who, in 1849, even went so far as to push for desegregation in Boston's public schools (p. 22). The Blairs, on other hand, were racist--anti-slavery racists, to be precise (p. 30). This difference between anti-slavery and racism runs as an important undercurrent throughout book, as Escott illustrates ways in which Lincoln grappled with, and his supporters responded to, social implications of his policies. Lincoln's views fell somewhere in between, for though he argued against territorial expansion of slavery, and claimed institution was founded on both injustice and bad policy, in years before his election to presidency, he carefully and adroitly avoided a defense of racial equality (pp. 18-19). His sentiment changed as nation was cast into dark shadow of Civil War. Underlying ideologies of Lincoln, Blair, and Sumner is Escott's own narrative of collision of politics of before, during, and after war. Lincoln's rise to prominence coincided with a broader national concern over institution of slavery, especially among northerners. Lincoln played off notion that slavery endangered free white society (p. 51), and though he acknowledged that references to existed in Constitution, he believed that the true policy was to tolerate and protect 'only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity' (p. 78). Through his election and secession crisis, new president maintained that only difference between Republicans and Southern Democrats was question of territorial expansion of slavery. In midst of secession, two most important members of Lincoln's new cabinet, Seward and Blair, pressed for new, ambitious, and radically different agendas that, ultimately, were fundamentally shaped by direction of war (p. …