Arguing until Doomsday

“Speaks to the internal tensions within party organizations, the blinding force of ambition, and the ways distrust of democratic processes and institutions can destroy democracy itself. In that, it is a book for our time.”—Library Journal

“Even readers who find the Civil War or politics boring could find this well-written narrative gripping. It helps especially now for readers needing to escape the present. All this solid but entertaining history really lacks for is background music.”—New York Journal of Books

“Woods has written one of the most engaging and accessible histories of the pre-Civil War Democratic Party to date. . . . [Arguing Until Doomsday] advances the field of American political history and affords nuance to a period that is always in danger of becoming oversimplified.”—The Civil War Monitor

“This impressive new book . . . deftly recovers the dynamism and disagreements that animated, and ultimately destroyed, the Democratic Party on the eve of the Civil War. . . . Diligently researched, closely argued, and clearly written, Arguing Until Doomsday is an essential book for students of antebellum politics and the road to Civil War.”—Civil War News

“Woods is to be congratulated for a study that is grounded in extensive research, both in primary sources and in the enormous secondary literature. . . . A very readable, informative, and judicious account.”—Journal of the Civil War Era

“Woods’s dual biography is elegantly written, clearly and persuasively argued, and filled with fresh and astute interpretations that restore the antebellum Democracy’s much-neglected complexity and internal diversity.”—Journal of Southern History

“A thoughtful and original account of how the Democratic Party and, more broadly, the nation were not big enough for the outsized figures of Douglas and Davis. . . . This dual biography packs a historiographical punch.”—American Nineteenth-Century History

“Woods’ engrossing book provides a needed reexamination of the demise of the antebellum Democratic Party through the lives of two men who hastened its dissolution. . . . Thoroughly satisfying.”—Louisiana History

“Vividly portraying the political and personal rivalry between Stephen Douglas and Jefferson Davis, Arguing until Doomsday paints a clear picture of the inner workings of the Democratic Party before and during the Civil War. Penning a history that crosses sectional and ideological lines, Michael E. Woods provides a blueprint for understanding American politics in this era.” — Rachel A. Shelden, author of Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War

“Today, we remember Stephen Douglas as Abraham Lincoln’s Illinois rival. But this fine book juxtaposes Douglas, the quintessential western promoter, against Mississippi’s Jefferson Davis, champion of the proslavery South. Their epic clash, expertly narrated by Michael E. Woods, ruptured the Democratic Party and set the stage for civil war.” — Daniel W. Crofts, author of Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union