Mr. Lincoln and the Negroes: The Long Road to Equality (review)

208CIVIL WAR HISTORY ample of this tendency, see the description of the actions of committee chairman Wade with regard to Charles P. Stone, the Union general accused by Wade of disloyalty in time of war (p. 166). In addition, this biography does not reflect the assimilation of some important recent scholarship concerning the Reconstruction era. The writings of Sharkey, Coben, and Unger, for example, have presented provocative analyses of economic issues and attitudes in the 1860's and 1870's, and Sharkey's 1959 volume, in particular, described and explained the complex combination of economic views held by Wade—support for high tariff, for inflated currency, and for the aspirations of laborers. To cite another example, Riddleberger's article in the Journal of Negro History (April, 1959) compared the ideas and actions of Wade and five other prominent Radical Republicans in the election of 1872. Professor Trefousse does not have to accept the conclusions of these other scholars concerning Wade, of course, but a knowledge of their findings would have added depth and insight to Benjamin Franklin Wade. Thus, this biography will be of value to anyone interested in the Civil War and Reconstruction era, but that its contribution is not as great as might have been hoped. Thomas J. Pressly University of Washington Mr. Lincoln and the Negroes: The Long Road to Equality. By William O. Douglas. (New York: Atheneum, 1963. Pp. xi, 237. $4.95.) This is a noble and disappointing experiment. In only a little more than a hundred pages of text it essays to survey patterns of race relations from Civil War America to the present, and to link certain words and deeds by Lincoln to current advances and retrogressions in the practice of whiteNegro equality. The second half of the book is slightly longer than the first and is a useful appendix of pertinent Lincolnian pronouncements and Supreme Court decisions. Of the latter, the range extends from the "separatebut -equal" error in the 1896 Plessy misadventure to the inspiringly opposite judicial conclusions of 1954 and 1963, in which Justice Douglas was a participant. For this book he accepts the view advanced relatively recently by "new frontiersmen" among historians. It is that by the time Lee surrendered Lincoln had progressed from his border-state, stanchly antislavery, and mildly antiNegro origins toward advocacy of political equality for the millions of freedmen as a necessary and proper fruit of the war. This ground appears so firm and clearly marked that it is surprising how earlier reviewers (J. C. Furnas in the New York Times Book Review, September 29, 1963, as example) have held to die tired depiction of Lincoln as an immovable advocate of colonization abroad for former bondsmen should emancipation take place—in short as an uneducable racist. Justice Douglas was more correct. When the chips were down, presidential policy, as distinguished from spasmodic false BOOKREVIEWS209 steps, fixed on biracial coexistence. Indeed, as Fawn Brodie and others have shown, Lincoln not only abandoned colonization chimeras but in a great leap forward came to the Radical line of championing suffrage for at least a sizable minority of Negroes. Unfortunately, Justice Douglas presents only bits and pieces of the available evidence to support the view that Lincoln grew by the end of the war into an advocate of racial equality. Page 67 appropriately quotes Lincoln's March 13, 1864, letter to Louisianan Michael Hahn, newly-designated governor of that "reconstructed" state. Lincoln cautioned Hahn to secrecy. Then, strictly as suggestion and without hint of command, the President voiced his personal wish that "the very intelligent [Negroes], and especially those who have fought gallandy in our ranks" be allowed to vote in the new Louisiana. Of course even this flaccid bid was quite advanced for the time. But how much broader a jump is evident in Lincoln's April 11, 1865, speech, when he publicly—not privately—recommended that Louisianans allow Negroes to cast ballots. Three days after making this speech Lincoln was dead. Without intention again to worry the "if Lincoln had lived" theme, it is worth restating the obvious fact that he looked to life not death, and to serving on as President until March, 1869. Informed contemporaries...