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BOOK REVIEWS77 Since the link betweenFinney'srevivalism and theantislavery causeis well known, Lesick's primary thesis seems at first superfluous. But he is concerned specifically with theology and Lane Seminary. He contends that Theodore Weld and the other LaneRebels developedtheir concept of immediatism directly from Finney's belief in the individual as a free "moral agent" and from his definition of benevolence as action for the promotion of universal happiness. Unhappily, Lesick devotes only a small part of his book to this point, getting to it only after a rather long and uninspired account of the founding of the seminary. More interesting is Lesick's contention that the same evangelicalism which led the Lane Rebels to immediatism caused most of them within a matter of years to deemphasize their involvement in antislavery work. Under the direct influence of Finney at Oberlin College, they came to accept his view that antislavery must be subordinated to the more important task of saving souls. Meanwhile, those Lane Rebels who had the greatest impact on the antislavery movement—Weld, Henry Stanton, Marius Robinson, and William T. Allan—abandoned evangelicalism. This is a provocative insight, and Mr. Lesick provides useful information concerning some of the less well known rebels. Still, his work would be stronger had he gotten to his main points more quickly, set them more firmly within the context of the antislavery movement, and had he avoided the highly repetitious style which marks the book. Stanley Harrold South Carolina State College Abraham Lincoln and the Union. By Oscar and Lilian Handlin. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. Pp. x, 204. $10.95.) Andrew Johnson and the Uses of Constitutional Power. By James E. Sefton. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. Pp. x, 212. $10.95.) The length and format required of volumes in the Library of American Biography series pose serious problems for any historian who takes on Lincoln. Despite this, Oscar and Lilian Handlin have produced a very readable life, which introduces the reader to the main events and issues of Lincoln's remarkable career. All the same, the portrait they offer falls short of being convincing or coherent. In the first place, the Handlins do not develop an explanatory theme which makes sense of Lincoln's life. Nor are they concerned to resolve the central problem, facing all Lincoln biographers, of the nature and sources of his greatness as a leader and president. The reader is thus left perplexed as to what the writers make of their subject. A second problem lies in the Handlins' decision to spend more time on the years before the Republican and presidential phase of Lincoln's career. As a result, the most complex and significant period of his Ufe is 78CIVIL WAR HISTORY given insufficient attention and is treated rather sketchily. There is, for instance, no analysis ofLincoln's quahties as party leader, politician, and statesman. Instead, the narrative of events flows on, punctuated only by extensive paraphrasing of his major speeches. This emphasis on Lincoln's addresses leaves the distinct impression that, in the Handlins' view, the most significant feature of his later years was his ability to formulate graphically and simply profound ideas about government, the Union, and human freedom. Even so, the stress on his role as an enunciator of ideas, coupled with the constant reference to his agonizing over the problems of the war, underestimates Lincoln's authority and resolve and makes him far more contemplative and indecisive than he actually was. The difficulties of writing a short Ufe of Lincoln do not apply in the case of Andrew Johnson. Although Johnson's career was longer and more varied than Lincoln's, covering a forty-year span and including every major public office in Tennessee and the nation, he has been much less written about, and his career was far more consistent and predictable than Lincoln's. In fact, it is James Sefton's contention thatJohnson's public career was unerringly consistent, almost unchanging, from his earliest years in politics, when heassembled thevalues and beliefs which comprised his political creed, until his presidency and even beyond. From the beginning, Johnson regarded himself, so Professor Sefton argues, as the defender of the working people of America...

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