Lincoln vs Douglas: The Great Debates Campaign (review)

78CIVIL WAR HISTORY culturists; and their wishes would almost certainly have kept the Confederacy on a straight and narrow path that respected state sovereignty. Naturally, change was bound to come in the South if the power of the agriculturists should ever wane. Yet, even this admission does not necessarily mean that state sovereignty would have been undermined and overthrown , as Professor Amlund thinks. His method is deliberately tailored to prove his point. In six short chapters , he describes the actions of the Confederate executive, the Congress, and the judiciary, as well as the chief episodes in Confederate-state relationsall for the purpose of showing how rapidly (and presumably how inevitably ) power was becoming centralized in the Confederate government. The only thing inevitable about all this was that, when the war proved to be long and bitter, the Confederacy had to make its choice of two alternatives —centralization or surrender. The system itself did not demand centralization; only the war did. It was against this pronounced trend towards centralization that the staterights doctrinaires (especially in Georgia and North Carolina) raised loud howls of protest, and took the damaging obstructive actions that the late Frank Owsley described in State Rights in the Confederacy (1926). Professor Amlund thinks that Dr. Owsley's thesis is "untenable" (p. 113), but he does not bother to present evidence to disprove it. The author even says (pp. 131-132) that the Confederate government "exceeded its constitutional powers," and that "it is demonstrable that the government did not remain within the strict legal limits assigned to it by the Constitution." Yet, having made this grave charge, he does not "demonstrate" it by evidence. Indeed, without even a pause, he goes on to make the astonishing assertion: "even when it exceeded these limits, its actions were judicially sustained." A reader will justly be puzzled to know by what standards the actions of the Confederate government must be adjudged unconstitutional when state courts as well as Confederate courts sustained them. A new and detailed study of Confederate government, based on wide research, would have been welcome. But this survey is too brief and, judging from the backnotes, seems to be too much based on secondary works. It has neither bibliography nor index. And it is marred by a style that is turgid and often even sophomoric. James Rabun Emory University Lincoln vs Douglas: The Great Debates Campaign. By Richard Allen Heckman. (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1967. Pp. v, 192. $5.00.) Professor Heckman provides a running account of the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas during their 1858 stump of Illinois. Each debate comes under detailed scrutiny and is highlighted with BOOK REVIEWS79 references to the local political scene. This constitutes the backbone of the book and distinguishes it from other more summary studies. The central thesis is not startlingly new but is firmly developed. The author argues that one major issue—slavery—cleaved the candidates in the course of their debates into opposing camps. Douglas defended the institution on legal grounds although he personally detested slavery; Lincoln had moral objections and believed it was a spreading evil which should be thwarted in the West in order to place it on the road to extinction. However , faced with the problem of rousing the voting public to mark their tickets, both canvassers chose to debate subjects such as the Dred Scott decision and racial equality on which their opinions did not really differ. These "shrewd politicians" knew what topics would appeal to the voters and avoided a discussion of slavery itself. In emphasizing the emotion-laden and tangential issues, the politicians obtained their votes, but hardened the public into more distinct pro and antislavery camps. This, according to Professor Heckman, contributed to the inability of the elected representatives of the people to compromise on the slavery question in the secessionist winter of 1860. Unfortunately, carelessness mars this study. While it is clearly demonstrated that the author has utilized manuscripts, scholarly books, and other published material on the speeches of this well-known canvass, he has made numerous technical errors—misquotations and mistakes in footnoting—in constructing his argument. These slips do not influence the thesis. When the...