A leader of the Reconstruction era, whose contested election eerily parallels the election debacle of 2000
The disputed election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden, in which Congress set up a special electoral commission, handing the disputed electoral votes to Hayes, brings recent events into sharp focus.
Historian Hans L. Trefousse explores Hayes's new relevance and reconsiders what many have seen as the pitfalls of his presidency. While Hayes did officially terminate the Reconstruction, Trefousse points out that this process was already well under way by the start of his term and there was little he could do to stop it. A great intellectual and one of our best-educated presidents, Hayes did much more in the way of healing the nation and elevating the presidency.

In Impeachment of a President, Hans L. Trefousse focuses on the causes of the failure to convict, the consequences of the acquittal, and the relationship of the impeachment to the ill success of Reconstruction. Drawing on a wealth of material, some only recently made available, Professor Trefousse sheds new light on the President's objectives and character.

The biography of Carl Schurz is a story of an amazing life. At the age of 19, Schurz, a student at the University of Bonn, became involved in the Revolution of 1848. Participating in the revolutionary army, he managed to escape through a sewer during the siege of Rastatt, flee across the Rhine to France, and come back to rescue his professor, Gottfried Kinkel, from a jail near Berlin. This deed made him famous, and when he came to American in 1852, Schurz was nominated for lieutenant governor of Wisconsin on the Republican ticket. He quickly rose in the party and was the head of the Wisconsin delegation at the 1860 National Convention. He worked hard for the cause, and Lincoln rewarded him with the post of Minister to Spain. At the outbreak of war he returned to join the Union Army, became a Major General, and took part in several important battles. After the war, he moved to Missouri, was elected Senator from that State, and became a role model for his fellow German Americans. In 1871 he became one of the main figures in the Liberal Republican movement, and in 1877 President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him Secretary of the Interior. After his retirement from the cabinet, Schurz became active in the politics of New York, as an advocate of municipal and civil service reform. He was a leading Mugwump who supported Grover Cleveland in 1884 and at the end of his life became a violent opponent of imperialism. He died in 1906. Carl Schurz, the man, his story, his ideals and his example, are particularly appropriate today because of the light his life sheds on the never-ending problems of immigration, assimilation, and the retention of ethnic identity. Carl Schurzas career furnishes a modelexample for all of these.

One hundred and forty years after his assassination on April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln towers more than ever above the landscape of American politics. In myth and memory, he is always the Great Emancipator and savior of the Union, second in stature only to George Washington. But was Lincoln always so exalted?Was he, as some historians argue, a poor President, deeply disliked, whose legacy was ennobled only by John Wilkes Booth's bullet? In this fascinating book, a leading historian finally takes the full measure of Lincoln's reputation. Drawing on a remarkable range of primary documents- speeches, newspaper accounts and editorials, private letters, memoirs, and other sources-Hans L. Trefousse gives us the voices of Lincoln's own time. From North and South, at home and abroad, here are politicians and ordinary people, soldiers and statesmen, abolitionists and slaveholders alike, in a rich chorus of American opinion. The result is a masterly portrait of Lincoln the President in the eyes of his fellow Americans.

One of the most controversial figures in nineteenth-century American history, Thaddeus Stevens is best remembered for his role as congressional leader of the radical Republicans and as a chief architect of Reconstruction. Long painted by historians as a vindictive 'dictator of Congress,' out to punish the South at the behest of big business and his own ego, Stevens receives a more balanced treatment in Hans L. Trefousse's biography, which portrays him as an impassioned orator and a leader in the struggle against slavery. Trefousse traces Stevens's career through its major phases: from his days in the Pennsylvania state legislature, when he antagonized Freemasons, slaveholders, and Jacksonian Democrats, to his political involvement during Reconstruction, when he helped author the Fourteenth Amendment and spurred on the passage of the Reconstruction Acts and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Throughout, Trefousse explores the motivations for Stevens's lifelong commitment to racial equality, thus furnishing a fuller portrait of the man whose fervent opposition to slavery helped move his more moderate congressional colleagues toward the implementation of egalitarian policies.

One hundred and forty years after his assassination on April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln towers more than ever above the landscape of American politics. In myth and memory, he is always the Great Emancipator and savior of the Union, second in stature only to George Washington. But was Lincoln always so exalted? Was he, as some historians argue, a poor President, deeply disliked, whose legacy was ennobled only by John Wilkes Booth's bullet? In this fascinating book, a leading historian finally takes the full measure of Lincoln's reputation. Drawing on a remarkable range of primary documents - speeches, newspaper accounts and editorials, private letters, memoirs, and other sources - Hans L. Trefousse gives us the voices of Lincoln's own time. From North and South, at home and abroad, here are politicians and ordinary people, soldiers and statesmen, abolitionists and slaveholders alike, in a rich chorus of American opinion. The result is a masterly portrait of Lincoln the President in the eyes of his fellow Americans.

In Impeachment of a President, Hans L. Trefousse focuses on the causes of the failure to convict, the consequences of the acquittal, and the relationship of the impeachment to the ill success of Reconstruction. Drawing on a wealth of material, some only recently made available, Professor Trefousse sheds new light on the President's objectives and character.

The biography of Carl Schurz is a story of an amazing life. At the age of 19, Schurz, a student at the University of Bonn, became involved in the Revolution of 1848. Participating in the revolutionary army, he managed to escape through a sewer during the siege of Rastatt, flee across the Rhine to France, and come back to rescue his professor, Gottfried Kinkel, from a jail near Berlin. This deed made him famous, and when he came to American in 1852, Schurz was nominated for lieutenant governor of Wisconsin on the Republican ticket. He quickly rose in the party and was the head of the Wisconsin delegation at the 1860 National Convention. He worked hard for the cause, and Lincoln rewarded him with the post of Minister to Spain. At the outbreak of war he returned to join the Union Army, became a Major General, and took part in several important battles. After the war, he moved to Missouri, was elected Senator from that State, and became a role model for his fellow German Americans. In 1871 he became one of the main figures in the Liberal Republican movement, and in 1877 President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him Secretary of the Interior. After his retirement from the cabinet, Schurz became active in the politics of New York, as an advocate of municipal and civil service reform. He was a leading Mugwump who supported Grover Cleveland in 1884 and at the end of his life became a violent opponent of imperialism. He died in 1906. Carl Schurz, the man, his story, his ideals and his example, are particularly appropriate today because of the light his life sheds on the never-ending problems of immigration, assimilation, and the retention of ethnic identity. Carl Schurz's career furnishes a model example for all of these.

This reference book by well-known Reconstruction expert Trefousse will be of great use to scholars and general readers. Pithy, readable articles, spanning the years 1862-96, reflect current scholarship on the period and thus focus heavily on race relations, the freed slaves, and restoration of the states. There are entries on court cases, terms (blacks, labor, etc.), organziations, states, laws, miscellaneous events, and major individuals. . . . As the only reference work of its type, it should find widespread applicability in libraries of any size. "Library Journal"

This new reference book reflects the latest scholarship regarding the Reconstruction of the American South following the Civil War. In the past four decades, the guidelines set forth by William D. Dunning and his students, which portrayed the period as a time of horror for suffering Southerners over whom radicals, scalawags, and carpetbaggers rode roughshod, has been amended. Since World War II, the appearance of revised versions of the period, as well as favorable biographies of such major figures as Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Benjamin F. Wade, Edwin M. Stanton, and George W. Julian, have transformed the historiography of Reconstruction. While many unresolved issues still remain, the field has benefited greatly from this reassessment. Hence, this outstanding single-volume reference, containing the most recent thinking on the period, will be of great help to scholars and the general public. No other reference focusing exclusively on Reconstruction exists. The dictionary stresses race relations, emancipation, the main participants in the struggle, and the restoration of the Southern states into the Union. Those states involved in some way or other in the process, including the border commonwealths, will be found here, as are the major Supreme Court decisions handed down during Reconstruction. Readable articles at each entry convey the principle information in an economical style and are followed in each case by a listing of the latest available literature, principally monographs and books rather than articles, in order to facilitate further research.

Covering a time period from 1862 to 1896, the dictionary focuses on matters pertaining to the integration of freedmen and the restoration of the states. The preface and chronology of events preceed the conveniently organized dictionary section, which contains entries whose lengths vary depending on the relative importance of the concept or personality treated. Generally, the importance of individuals in reference to Reconstruction, rather than their general significance, has determined their inclusion. Each entry is followed by its own bibliography. The volume closes with a select bibliography and index. This outstanding reference belongs in every college and university library as well as in public libraries, and is eminently suitable for courses dealing with the Civil War and Reconstruction and for Civil War Roundtables. Civil War buffs and historians interested in nineteenth-century America will refer to it again and again.

A definitive life of the flawed man who succeeded to the American presidency after Lincoln's assassination.

Politically shrewd but fatally unable to adapt to new political realities, Andrew Johnson presided, disastrously, over the tumultuous first years of Reconstruction. In this provocative account, Hans Trefousse gives us "a brilliant, compassionate portrait of a dynamic era of social change and national healing, and of the tragic failure of an American leader" (Library Journal).

"A readable new biography of the 17th president that fills in many of the hidden corners of his life story. . . . The story of the man and the times that led to his impeachment is told with great authority." —Herbert Mitgang, New York Times