Making of a Southerner: William Barclay Napton's Private Civil War Book

This is a fair joint biography of Lincoln (who is the subject of many biographies) and Douglas (who is the subject of far fewer, but not an inconsiderable number). It does not break new ground or even bring any new material to light, but it does put in one place 1) a very brief biographical sketch of each man with 2) a somewhat extended treatment of the many times that they interacted with each other over their 30 years or so together in the public eye.

I did not really understand until reading this book the extent to which Lincoln and Douglas shadowed each other long before their famous debates in 1858--including competition for the same woman (Mary Todd--Lincoln won) and an earlier series of statewide debates during the election of 1840, in which Lincoln acted as a surrogate for William Henry Harrison and Douglas as a representative of Martin Van Buren. The first few chapters were the most interesting to me because they covered ground not easily available in other books.

Nonetheless, I think that Morris buries the lede. In an effort to emphasize the extent to which Lincoln and Douglas were rivals, he does not tell the story of how, in many ways, they worked together to achieve even larger aims than those represented in debates: such as, for example, the importance of having debates, or the importance of agreeing on some basic principles that allow you to disagree without destroying the system that depends on disagreement. And, in the final chapter of the relationship, the importance of playing by the rules and accepting the results.

Lincoln and Douglas always struck me as an almost perfect example of political enemies who were civic friends--people who disagreed with each other about all of the great political issues of the day, but understood that they were working within a system whose survival and perpetuation was more important than any single victory or defeat. And when that system was threatened as badly as it has ever been threatened, Lincoln and Douglas worked with a singularity of purpose that belied their 30 years of political enmity.

The real story of the Lincoln-Douglas relationship is not, as the title of the book suggests, a "struggle for the heart and soul of America," but a struggle by two people who believed in that heart and soul and understood in the core of their beings that the disagreements that they spent their lives having were a crucial part of what makes that heart and soul work. You can get this story from the book, but you have to look hard, because it is not really the story he is telling.