Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution Revised ed. Edition

by James M. McPherson (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0195076066

ISBN-10: 0195076060

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James McPherson has emerged as one of America's finest historians. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times Book Review, called "history writing of the highest order." In that volume,
McPherson gathered in the broad sweep of events, the political, social, and cultural forces at work during the Civil War era. Now, in Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, he offers a series of thoughtful and engaging essays on aspects of Lincoln and the war that have rarely been
discussed in depth.

McPherson again displays his keen insight and sterling prose as he examines several critical themes in American history. He looks closely at the President's role as Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, showing how Lincoln forged a national military strategy for victory. He explores the
importance of Lincoln's great rhetorical skills, uncovering how--through parables and figurative language--he was uniquely able to communicate both the purpose of the war and a new meaning of liberty to the people of the North. In another section, McPherson examines the Civil War as a Second
American Revolution, describing how the Republican Congress elected in 1860 passed an astonishing blitz of new laws (rivaling the first hundred days of the New Deal), and how the war not only destroyed the social structure of the old South, but radically altered the balance of power in America,
ending 70 years of Southern power in the national government.

The Civil War was the single most transforming and defining experience in American history, and Abraham Lincoln remains the most important figure in the pantheon of our mythology. These graceful essays, written by one of America's leading historians, offer fresh and unusual perspectives on both.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A stimulating group of essays, incorporating both McPherson's own work on the Civil War along with others like Eric Foner on Reconstruction."--John Tricamo, San Francisco State University

"Insightful, provocative, and thought provoking--A valuable source for understanding Lincoln and the longterm structural consequences of the Civil War."--Robert Ubriaco, Jr., Webster University

"Essays that go right to the heart of the meaning of the war and Abraham Lincoln's role in it....Crystal-clear, well-reasoned, supremely informed essays....McPherson deftly and convincingly sketches out how Lincoln's vision and leadership made the necessary revolution possible."--The New York Times
Book Review

"McPherson makes a compelling case for the revolutionary nature of the war."--The Washington Post Book World

About the Author

James M. McPherson is George Henry Davis Professor of American History at Princeton University. His books include Battle Cry of Freedom, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History, and Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Revised ed. edition (June 4, 1992)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0195076060
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195076066
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1430L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.03 x 5.34 x 0.43 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #172,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #34 in American Literature (Books)
- #73 in Military History (Books)
- #246 in United States History (Books)

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James M. McPherson

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James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. He has published numerous volumes on the Civil War, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom, Crossroads of Freedom (which was a New York Times bestseller), Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, and For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, which won the Lincoln Prize.

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Gary Hoggatt

McPherson presents a thought-provoking collection of Civil War essays

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2013

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In his 1992 collection, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, Civil War historian James M. McPherson draws together seven intriguing essays on Lincoln and the Civil War. The two main threads running through the essays are how the Civil War could really qualify as a revolution, given the massive transformative and and liberating effect it had on the United States, and how Lincoln lead the revolution, both philosophically and militarily. It's a very thought provoking and enjoyable collection.

McPherson makes a persuasive case that the Civil War resulted in changes as large as, and in some ways larger, than the American Revolution. The enormous change wrought be the liberation of the slaves is a major factor, of course, but so was the American regional balance of power shifting, as McPherson demonstrates, from the South to the North.

Another revolutionary concept was how liberty itself was defined. Americans had always regarding liberty as "freedom from" government interference, but this concept of negative liberty was supplanted by a positive liberty approach that granted citizens "freedom to" their rights, and granted the federal government the power to enforce those rights. Also covered is the counter-revolution as Reconstruction ceased and some gains were lost. I have a political science degree, so I really enjoyed the discussions on the political theory liberty and how it applied in America before and after the Civil War.

The essays on Lincoln are also well done. They address his role in guiding the philosophical aims of the revolution over the course of the war, such as the well-known shift from Union to Union and Emancipation as inseparable, his use of language in leading the debate, and his military strategy, including how it changed and how it differed from others of the time.

The military essays are especially interesting, and do an excellent job of explaining how Lincoln arrived at his determination to purse a "total war" approach, completely remaking the South culturally and economically instead of, as he originally framed it, putting down an insurrection. McPherson revisited Lincoln's military role in his 2008 book Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief, but I found that effort devolved too much into a general history of the Union war effort, and lacked the focus on Lincoln that McPherson was attempting to capture. The essays here are very focused and well written. I wish he had kept the same focus he had here with Tried By War.

Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution is a great collection of thought-provoking essays by today's preeminent Civil War historian. Even those who've read extensively on Lincoln and the Civil War will find something new here, and anyone with a political science bent will especially appreciate the political theory in this volume.

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Kerry Walters

From union to nation

Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2008

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This well-argued collection of James McPherson's occasional pieces focuses primarily on what the author sees as the fundamental changes that the Civil War brought to America's polity, economics, culture, and self-identity. The first, second, third, and seventh of the essays deal especially with this theme. The middle fourth, fifth, and sixth essays are less directly related to it, but nonetheless offer fascinating explorations of Lincoln the total war president, Lincoln the wordsmith, and Lincoln the "hedgehog."

Many of the people who lived through the Civil War thought of it as a revolution. Many historians since have agreed, although for varying reasons. McPherson's main project in this book is to figure out whether and how the Civil War can be considered the "second American Revolution."
He believes that the war was in fact revolutionary on several counts.

First, the war shifted the economic and political power balance in the United States. The war's devastation of southern property and demographics, especially after it evolved from a limited to a total conflict, shifted economic superiority to northern industry and agriculture. Moreover, the southern states' virtual antebellum monopoly of the White House, as well as their immense congressional power, was broken for the next half century. This is what McPherson (and others) refer to as the "external" revolution.

But there was an "internal" revolution too in the realm of legal rights and national self-identity. Four million slaves were freed and granted civil and political rights, and the southern aristocracy, along with the entire way of life and set of values it maintained, disappeared (or at least went underground). Moreover, argues McPherson, the war brought about a shift from early Republic concentration on liberty as "freedom from" (negative liberty), which distrusted strong central government, to liberty as "freedom to" (positive liberty), which emphasized the responsibility of the federal government to guarantee civil rights. This shift helped create a new sense of national identity that focused on the nation rather than the region: hence McPherson's claim that the Civil War moved the country from a "union" to a "nation."

The influence of the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin is present throughout much of McPherson's thinking about liberty, and McPherson also draws on one of Berlin's most famous essays in designating Lincoln (Chapter VI) as a hedgehog in his single-minded devotion to preserving the union. McPherson might be drawing on the work of philosophers of language in his fascinating discussion (Chapter V) of Lincoln's influential talent for creating and manipulating "live" as opposed to "dead" metaphors in expressing his opinions and seeking support for his policies. In both these cases, McPherson nicely weaves some philosophical analysis into his historical interpretations.

Where I find McPherson less helpful is his rather uncritical discussion of Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus (Chapter III). He rehearses the well-worn argument that the suspension was simply necessary from a pragmatic perspective--end of discussion. As Lincoln said in another context, "often a limb must be sacrificed to save a life." But this interpretation begs for a discussion of the moral and political short- and longterm trauma that the amputation inflicted on the body politic. How far can one go in suspending liberties in order to preserve liberty?

Nonetheless, the essays collected in Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution are exactly what readers have come to expect from McPherson: illuminating, gracefully written, well-researched. They aren't the final word, and I suspect McPherson doesn't expect them to be. But they wonderfully enrich the on-going conversation.

6 people found this helpful

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