Arguing until Doomsday
Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, and the Struggle for American Democracy
By Michael E. Woods
352 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 4 halftones, notes, bibl., index
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Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-5639-7
Published: April 2020 -
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4696-5640-3
Published: February 2020
Civil War America
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Operating on personal, partisan, and national levels, Woods traces the deep roots of Democrats' internal strife, with fault lines drawn around fundamental questions of property rights and majority rule. Neither belief in white supremacy nor expansionist zeal could reconcile Douglas and Davis's factions as their constituents formed their own lines in the proverbial soil of westward expansion. The first major reinterpretation of the Democratic Party's internal schism in more than a generation, Arguing until Doomsday shows how two leading antebellum politicians ultimately shattered their party and hastened the coming of the Civil War.
About the Author
Michael E. Woods is associate professor of history at the University of Tennessee and director of the Papers of Andrew Jackson project.
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Reviews
"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
"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