The House Divides: The Age of Jackson and Lincoln from the War of 1812 to the Civil War (review)

266CIVIL WAR HISTORY a stringent credit program. Dominating die Missouri bar, they sought to preserve an independent judiciary against the democratizing tendencies of periodic elections of a partisan nature. The Whigs enjoyed their greatest heyday in the early 1850's as the Missouri Democracy split over slavery extension and the legislative attempts to instruct Benton on this issue. Yet this same problem brought about the demise of the national Whig party, and Missouri's Whigs proved no more successful in overcoming it as the 1850's moved rapidly forward. By middecade they had passed out of existence as a formal organization. Professor Mering has developed a difficult subject with considerable skill. He has judiciously researched the many manuscripts and printed sources available. He writes in a clear, readable style which adds much to a rather listless subject. WrLLIAM E. Parrish Westminster College (Missouri) The House Divides: The Age of Jackson and Lincoln from the War of 1812 to the Civil War. By Paul I. Wellman. (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1966. Pp. xiii, 488. $6.95.) Out of the climate of the turbulent Great Plains and Southwest, land of the "trampling herd," proud pony Indian, and the "comanchero," has come novelist-journalist-historian Paul I. Wellman to focus his well-known talent for sharp dramatization upon a survey of nineteenth-century Young America before the Civil War. The work contains five books with a total of Üiirty chapters. Books one and two (twelve chapters) sympathetically star Andrew Jackson as the traditional "Old Hickory," in sharp contrast to the intellectual treatment given the subject by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. In Wellman's study Jackson emerges as a veritable knight guarding the Union with one steely eye, the otiier eye glistening on his "grand vision for his nation." Book Three (seven chapters) is devoted to Manifest Destiny in action and its repercussion on die turbulent political scene. The story of the Texas Republic emphasizes Sam Houston as Jackson's protégé of conquest. The important role of Anson Jones, a sophisticated doctor, is not treated. Oregon and California receive a brief, but more balanced examination. The Mexican War commands half of the chapters on the general subject. Wellman places "Old Rough and Ready" Taylor in a sideshow to Winfield Scott's "great campaign" and reduces Santa Anna to interesting and informative footnotes. The last two books (eleven chapters) consider the "rift" that becomes a "chasm" resulting in the "Irrepressible Conflict." The section features Abraham Lincoln, anotiier kind of westerner around the Union pole. While Wellman finds common ground for comparison between Jackson and Lincoln , he is careful to place die two leaders in their respective backgrounds. Massachusetts, however, faintly reflects Davy Crockett's nest of sharp-eyed Yankee abolitionists. The author neady dodges "schools" on the causes of BOOK REVIEWS267 the Civil War by the simple expediency of a neutral political narration and conclusion of his work before South Carolina seceded from the Union. Wellman's book sparkles with interspersed vignettes on well-known and little-known players and events. His opening dramatic description of the Battle of New Orleans is classic. He points up the turbulent congressional scene with a human and humorous description of the duel between Henry Clay and John Randolph. His short treatment of the struggle of John Quincy Adams to overdirow die "gag rule" in the House does the event dramatic justice. What the publisher has advertised as a "colorful" addition to die Mainstream of America Series, edited by Lewis Gannett, emerges as a light survey molded into a brilliant mosaic. Wellman avoids the straitjacket of chronology by fitting togetiier the pieces of his mosaic widi "historical free will," a technique which gives his work a flowing continuity. Academicians , however, will be frustrated by die lack of footnotes to interesting quoted material, and die lack of bibliographical reference to primary materials and highly regarded monographs on topics treated in the book. In last analysis, Wellman has burned his particular western brand on a familiar story. John Sherman Long Southern Methodist University Ho! For the Gold Fields: Northern Overland Wagon Trains of the 1860s. Edited by Helen McCann White. (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1966. Pp. xii, 289. $8.50...