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66 CIVIL WAR HISTORY tivism and that in their rush to establish their independence they gave little thought to the consequences oftheir action. No summary in such brief compass can do justice to this book. It is fraught with provocative ideas which might profitably be followed up in future studies. The portraits of the drama's leading actors-William Porcher Miles, Benjamin F. Perry, James H. Hammond, Arthur Simkins and Robert Barnwell Rhett, to name only a few-are finely drawn. A model of thoroughness and precision in both research and execution, the study was deservedly awarded the Allan Nevins Prize of the Society of American Historians. Robert W. Johannsen University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Joshua R. Giddings and the Tactics of Radical Politics. By James Brewer Stewart. (Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University , 1970. Pp. xi, 318. $8.50.) James Brewer Stewart's biography of Joshua R. Giddings is the first published full-length study of the Ohio antislavery stalwart since the appearance in 1892 of the adulatory Life written by his son-in-law, George W. Julian. A gap of long standing in the literature of the antislavery movement has thus at last been closed, and "Father Giddings" has found a sympathetic biographer. It is Professor Stewart's contention that Giddings created a vital link "between traditional representative government" and the "root and branch activist" of extreme abolitionism. Without this link, he argues, "much of America's impetus for constructive change would have been without effect in the halls of Congress." By bridging the gap between Garrisonian ultraists and more moderate opponents of slavery, Giddings made an important contribution to the American reform movement . To substantiate his thesis, the author has scoured the pertinent manuscript collections as well as the more easily accessible printed sources bearing on Giddings' career. Skillfully weaving together his material, he recounts his hero's rise as a lawyer on the Western Reserve, his financial setback during the Panic of 1837, his election to Congress, and his long years of service in the House of Representatives. Again and again Giddings is shown to have been torn between his commitment to moral rectitude and the necessity of accommodation with existing parties, a dilemma he tried to resolve by attempting to bring his political associates up to his own advanced level. It is in the resolution of the radical's dilemma of constructive versus destructive tactics that Professor Stewart sees special significance in Giddings' tactics. Although a bitter foe of the "peculiar institution," BOOK REVIEWS67 and heartsick at the contradiction between American professions of freedom and the persistence of human bondage, he strongly believed in working within the system. He had faith in the Constitution and thought it capable of serving as a framework within which reforms could be achieved. This was his strategy, and although his attitudes were in some ways closer to those of the abolitionists than to the free soilers and gradual emancipationists, he never abandoned it. According to the author , his method was effective because by Giddings' courageous stand in Congress "he quickened the sensibilities of his generation to respond to urgent questions." In picturing his subject as a link between the radical abolitionists and the more conservative foes of slavery, Professor Stewart certainly does justice to his theme. Never comfortable with the compromises necessitated by political realities, Giddings nevertheless sought to adjust to them. Unceasingly agitating against the apologists for slavery, he often became the subject of ridicule. But he refused to abandon his belief in the possibility of reform by legal means. And unlike many fighters for freedom, he was comparatively immune to the more virulent forms of racism so common in the nineteenth century. At times, he even advocated universal suffrage, a daring proposition in a country in which slavery still existed. It is doubtless true that Giddings, occupying as he did an intermediary position between ultras and moderates, performed an important function. His uncompromising attacks in Congress on the institution of slavery furthered emancipation, and his courageous stand gained the admiration of many observers. But the author's insistence that "no Northern political figure did more to channel opinion and move institutions against slavery" is less...

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