"[Kaplan] tells this story with precision and eloquence." -Seattle
Times"An eye-opening biography from a trusted source on the topic."
-Kirkus Review"Elegantly written and thoroughly researched."
-Publishers WeeklyThe acclaimed biographer, with a
thought-provoking exploration of how Abraham Lincoln's and John
Quincy Adams' experiences with slavery and race shaped their
differing viewpoints, provides both perceptive insights into these
two great presidents and a revealing perspective on race relations
in modern America.Lincoln, who in afterlife became mythologized as
the Great Emancipator, was shaped by the values of the white
America into which he was born. While he viewed slavery as a moral
crime abhorrent to American principles, he disapproved of
anti-slavery activists. Until the last year of his life, he
advocated "voluntary deportation," concerned that free blacks in a
white society would result in centuries of conflict. In 1861, he
had reluctantly taken the nation to war to save it. While this
devastating struggle would preserve the Union, it would also
abolish slavery-creating the biracial democracy Lincoln feared.
John Quincy Adams, forty years earlier, was convinced that only a
civil war would end slavery and preserve the Union. An antislavery
activist, he had concluded that a multiracial America was
inevitable. Lincoln and the Abolitionists, a frank look at Lincoln,
"warts and all," provides an in-depth look at how these two
presidents came to see the issues of slavery and race, and how that
understanding shaped their perspectives. In a far-reaching
historical narrative, Fred Kaplan offers a nuanced appreciation of
both these great men and the events that have characterized race
relations in America for more than a century-a legacy that
continues to haunt us all. The book has a colorful supporting cast
from the relatively obscure Dorcas Allen, Moses Parsons, Violet
Parsons, Theophilus Parsons, Phoebe Adams, John King, Charles
Fenton Mercer, Phillip Doddridge, David Walker, Usher F. Linder,
and H. Ford Douglas to Elijah Lovejoy, Francis Scott Key, William
Channing, Wendell Phillips, and Rufus King. The cast includes
Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln's first vice president, and James Buchanan
and Andrew Johnson, the two presidents on either side of Lincoln.
And it includes Abigail Adams, John Adams, Henry Clay, Stephen A.
Douglas, and Frederick Douglass, who hold honored places in the
American historical memory.The subject of this book is slavery and
racism, the paradox of Lincoln, our greatest president, as an
antislavery moralist who believed in an exclusively white America;
and Adams, our most brilliant statesman, as an antislavery activist
who had no doubt that the United States would become a multiracial
nation. It is as much about the present as the past.
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