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276CIVIL WAR HISTORY lieve, for the convoluted cultural reasons this book advances, but simply because it was the rational strategic judgment of leaders on both sides that a passive defense could not win the war, whatever the costs of the alternative tactics and strategy. Russell F. Weicley Temple University Carl Schurz: A Biography. By Hans L. Trefousse. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982. Pp. ix, 386. $29.50.) After half a century it is time to put aside Claude Feuss's reverential 1932 biography of Carl Schurz andwelcome this new evaluation of America's most famous German. Hans Trefousse, himself an Americanized German , is ideally equipped to bridge the two cultures. The portrait of Schurz that emerges from this smoothly written, judicious biography, though respectful in tone, is critical enough to prompt a réévaluation of Schurz and his achievements. Brushing aside the fileopietistic haze which has blurred Schurz's image, Trefousse realistically sees Schurz as the prototype of the ethnic politician, parlaying his self-appointed role as Germanic spokesman into power and prestige. It is a measure of the declining reputation of mugwumpery that Schurz is no longer praised for his political independence. Instead, Trefousse concludes that Schurz's vaunted freedom from party fetters was a great mistake which ultimately "condemned him to political oblivion." Trefousse finds Schurz motivated by a "peculiarmixture of righteousness and self-interest." This combination accounts for the many apparent paradoxes which mark his career. It seems odd to see the future civil service reformer pestering Lincoln for a job like the most obnoxious sort of office seeker and, later, as U.S. senator from Missouri, gleefully dispensing patronage to friends, Germans, and countrymen. It might also seem inconsistent for the future anti-imperialist to hail Bismarck's military victory over France and to advocate American annexation of Canada. From reading between the lines, one also gets the impression that Schurz's foray into the Liberal Republican movement was motivated as much by personal contempt for President Grant as by a principledstand on theissues. Indeed, Schurz's voteagainstthe Ku Klux Klan Act demonstrated that he was ready to abandon his old priniples if he could thereby embarrass Grant. Schurz's military record was as ambiguous as his public career. Trefousse refutes the cruel taunt heard in the Union army: "I fights mit Sigei and runs mit Schurz." He exonerates Schurz of blame for the disasters at Chancellorsville and on the first day at Gettysburg but concludes with faint praise that "while Schurz may have held too high a rank for his abilities he nevertheless was not a poor soldier." BOOK REVIEWS277 In short, this biography, though objective and even sympathetic, subtly deflates Schurz. That probably was not the author's intention. He is scrupulously nonjudgmental, but it can hardly be denied that the reformers of the Gilded Age no longer seem quite as pure or heroic as they once did. Along with E. L. Godkin and the brothers Adams, Schurz was able to impose his view of the Gilded Age upon subsequent generations partly because he wrote so well and partly because he seemed to have preempted the moral high ground. But with the recent spate of scholarly attention directed to the major figures of the Gilded Age, Schurz and his friends no longer seem to be the lonely champions of theright which they liked to portray themselves. Instead, a more balanced picture is emerging, and this fresh and persuasive biography adds a further dimension to that portrait. Allan Peskin Cleveland State University Equal Justice Under Law: Constitutional Development, 1835-1875. By Harold M. Hyman and William M. Wiecek. (New York: Harper & Row, 1982. Pp. xv, 571. $20.95.) This most recent volume in the New American Nation series is at once rich in detail and analysis, insightful, argumentative, and occasionally exasperating. It is, unhappily, impossible in this shortreview to do more than hint at the range of the book's contributions as well as its weaknesses . It is a collaborative effort (for the years down to the Civil War, and then the work of Professor Hyman) of two widely respected constitutional scholars. It is not simply a historiographical survey of current studies in the area...

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