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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 (although it is also that). Readers of the authors' earlier works would expect more, and they will not be disappointed. If one interpretive approach can be said to hold it together, itmight be that of Dwight Dumond, once described as a latter-day abolitionist. Dumond deserved considerable credit for taking abolitionist constitutionalism seriously; some, however, will feel that Hyman and Wiecek have carried that spirit a bit too far. In any event, the volumeprovides a counterpoint to the analyses of Charles Fairman and Carl Swisher, for example, in their volumes in theHolmes Devise series that cover most of these same years. The most challenging part of the study probably will be chapter 11: "The Fourteenth Amendment in the Light of the Thirteenth: Not Cramped by the Old Technicalities." This represents an effort to chart a new course in the now sterile debate about the Fourteenth Amendment. It ought to be viewed, the book asserts, from the perspective of the "ignored" Thirteenth. The Fourteenth, as interpreted by jurists and many historians, has diluted the Thirteenth because people failed to see that it (and its offshoot, the Fourteenth) "reflected elastic, organic, dy- 278CIVIL WAR HISTORY namic understandings about individuals' rights under the Constitution, about positive duties on nation and states to secure these rights, and about limitations on states in the federal union" (pp. 276-77) . Casting the Thirteenth Amendment in the mold of abolitionist constitutionalism, of course, was suggested long ago by Jacobus ten Broek, but it was not taken up forcefully by scholars and linked to the Fourteenth. This is, without a doubt, a provocative approach that should be grasped and critically examined. Whether the analysis can be supported, of course, remains to be seen. It is worth mention that the importance of the work of the so-called Seward lobby in securing passage of the Thirteenth Amendment is not fully explored, and it can be argued that it is important to do so in any debate about what the terse language of the amendment "reflected." The analysis of constitutional developments before the Civil War also is largely from the perspective of abolitionist constitutionalism. The territorial sovereignty theory of Stephen A. Douglas is handled roughly. Its weaknesses (and they were certainly there) are exposed fully. Because of its murkiness it was easy for proslavery proponents of a noninterventionist theory to absorb it. This is certainly true, but what is missing is a similar thoughtful critique of abolitionist positions: a good possibility would have been the development of Wiecek's insight in his book on antislavery constitutionalism that there was a distinct similarity concerning norms...

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