T. Butler King of Georgia (review)

182civil war history can be learned about the period from this study of his career. It is highly recommended. University of Illinois Robert W. Johannsen T. Butler King of Georgia. By Edward M. Steel, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1964. Pp. vii, 204. $5.00.) A Whig Congressman from Georgia in 1839 and through most of the 1840's, Thomas Butler King, an early and ardent supporter of Zachary Taylor, sought appointment as Secretary of the Navy with hope which "amounted almost to expectation." This ambition was frustrated; instead, King was sent by the Taylor administration on a semi-secret mission to California. His task was to assure the people of California that the administration was concerned with their interests and that it would look with favor upon the formation of a state government and a request for admission to the Union. So impressed was King with the possibilities in California for an aspiring politician that he resigned his seat in Congress and attempted to win California's first senatorship. Again his ambition was frustrated. The effort and the failure epitomize King's career. Always his reach exceeded his grasp. Reasonably successful in the variety of business and political affairs which interested him, he was never able to win the big prize. This biography provides some insight into Georgia politics of the preCivil War period; especially does it point up the intermingling of business and politics within the career of a single individual. The very diversity of King's interests explains, perhaps, his failure to achieve great fame. Only the truly exceptional and gifted person may achieve greatness without absolute dedication to a single cause. King was not truly exceptional and gifted; he did not have a single cause. Written originally as a doctoral dissertation under the direction of Fletcher Green at the University of North Carolina and accepted in 1953, this version, published some dozen years later, is but little changed. Ten of the twelve chapters are cast in the original form; stylistic changes are minimal. Kirwan's Crittenden; Shenton's Robert Walker; Leonard White's The Jacksonians; Heath's Constructive Liberalism; and a single journal article other than his own, all published after the dissertation was completed, were added to the "Select List of Works Consulted." None of these is actually cited for other than confirmation of positions taken in the dissertation ; none necessitated changes in fact or interpretation. All of this might indicate the author's failure to utilize recently published materials; it does not. Steel's original research was solidly based upon source materials and reflects a judicious use of newspapers and journal articles. The King Papers in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina provided Steel with the bulk of his material; he also found useful various other manuscript collections. BOOK REVIEWS183 Only the most unbending of perfectionists would have been willing to insist that the original dissertation failed to meet satisfactory scholarly requirements. It was a most creditable job by a careful craftsman. In published form it is no less craftsmanlike. The volume does lack the sense of climax and the readable style which would make it a candidate for the title of a "Georgia Biographical Classic." It seems certain, however, that a Nevins or a Schlesinger would have troubles in making T. Buder King of Georgia a figure of heroic proportions. King was not such a figure; Steel deserves commendation for refusing to portray him as such. Robert L. Peterson University of Oregon Essays in Southern Biography. Edited by Joseph F. Steelman, et al. (Greenville, N.C.: East Carolina Publications in History, 1965. Pp. vii, 166. $2.50.) Eight members of the department of history of East Carolina College have written Essays in Southern Biography which range in time from 1705 to the rise of Harry Flood Byrd, and in area from Virginia to Georgia. The essays have no common theme and few common characteristics . Several of them tell less than the reader wants to know. In discussing "Daniel Reeves Goodloe: A Perplexed Abolitionist During Reconstruction ," Joseph F. Steelman repeats a story that Goodloe married a congressman's daughter who gave birth to another man's child on her...