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BOOK REVIEWS Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man. By David Donald. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970. Pp. xxiv, 595, xxxix. $15.00.) A decade ago historians and general readers alike acclaimed the first volume of Professor Donald's biography of Sumner. They praised the author's research, as well as his penetrating insights and fine style. But, while Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War won the Pulitzer Prize, several critics associated with the civil rights movement complained that Donald had been unfair to the statesman whose principles had antedated their own. They argued that Donald, by his use of evidence and choice of words, had presented a distorted picture which overstressed Sumner's intellectual arrogance, humorlessness and other unpleasant attributes. The present volume is likely to receive the same mixed reception—indeed the first rose petals and dead cats have already found their target. Donald's concluding volume of his life of Sumner demonstrates the enduring virtues of traditional biography. Its foundation is solid, being largely built from primary materials uncovered through truly exhaustive digging in a variety of sources. Doubtless its author overlooked some manuscripts depository or newspaper but, if so, it is likely to be smaller than the Goshen (N.Y.) Historical Society, or more obscure than the Placerville Corner (Calif.) Gold Hill Ncics. The book also pulls together material drawn from the best of the vast bibliography of secondary accounts of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Except for an occasional gesture at innovative method (as in the use of a computer to analyze the Massachusetts vote in 1862), the principal tools for the construction of this biography are the standard ones: the author's mind and hand. Because of Donald's ability to use them well to recreate the past, Senator Charles Sumner lives again. The reader sees the consistency with which he struggled to win for Negroes freedom during the Civil War and equality during Reconstruction. Perhaps for the first time many will realize how Sumner's position as Chairman of the Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations allowed him not only to influence significantly his country's diplomacy but also to win his colleagues' respect and often their support for his more unpopular racial principles. Moreover, students who have often heard of Sumner only as an impractical idealist may be surprised at the skill with which he balanced off political rivals, contended with Presidents and frequently got his way. He cooperated (contrary to legend) more often than he fought with Lincoln; he took 58 good advantage of Andrew Johnson's unwillingness to make concessions to either Moderate or Radical Republicans; and he blocked some of President Grant's favorite schemes before losing to a new generation of less principled Republican leaders. Throughout he was a lonely figure, often repelling associates by his coldness and harsh words and sometimes alienating even those who might have warmed his life. While traditional in historical method, the Donald book makes important departures in content from that of older biographies. A reader of many earlier studies of national political leaders would often be unable to discover exactly how those politicians succeeded in gaining office and even less often would he learn of the local interests, factions and issues which helped the subjects to win succeeding elections. This biography repeatedly treats in detail the politics of Sumner's home state and reveals the political finesse with which Sumner rallied support while giving the appearance of being a nonpolitical statesman. Another variation from traditional biography is the detailed treatment of the subject 's mental and physical health. How the discreet Victorian biographers —or Sumner himself—would have blanched at the careful dissection of the reasons for the failure of Sumner's brief marriage. Imagine their outrage over the inclusion of a post-mortem report on Sumner's genitals ("perfectly normal")! While these medical passages are sometimes speculative, they generally rest upon concrete evidence. They do not stray too far down the perilous path of attempting to psychoanalyze the dead. Inevitably, such a sizable work, written by a historian who does not shirk his duty to interpret, has questionable aspects. Each reader is likely to find interpretations which...

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