The Union Forever

Edward McClelland’s new book sheds light on a much-maligned, if misguided, patriot, and provides lessons for overcoming today’s bitter political divisions.

Stephen A. Douglas is not a well-respected figure in American history. Known more for his famous rivalry with Abraham Lincoln than any of his senatorial or judicial accomplishments, Douglas is often consigned to play the role of a foil in stories about the Railsplitter’s meteoric rise to the presidency. When historians and political scientists give him more attention than that, his reputation suffers even more for his indifference to slavery and openly racist remarks.

In his new book, Chorus of the Union, Chicago historian Edward Robert McClelland offers readers a different picture of the “Little Giant.” Rather than presenting a caricature of Douglas as a cartoonish villain, McClelland treats him as a complex historical figure attempting to navigate the heady winds of antebellum politics. The Douglas that emerges from this account is something of a confused patriot, genuinely dedicated to the Union but mistaken about the best way to save it.

Douglas’s muddled Unionism can teach Americans something about the difficulties of our present political moment. Although the issues of our day are nowhere near as fundamental as those raised by slavery in the period leading up to the Civil War, we are, unfortunately, witnessing a rise in extremism and violence that bears something of a resemblance to the chaos Douglas and Lincoln faced. By looking back with McClelland at their rivalry and efforts to save the Union without war, contemporary Americans can perhaps come to understand something about the statesmanship we need in our own time.

McClelland rightly begins by depicting Douglas as a frontier populist. After he first moved to Illinois from the Northeast, Douglas wrote to his brother in 1833 that he became “a Western man … imbib[ing] Western feelings, principles, and interests, and … selected Illinois as my favorite place of adoption, without any desire of returning to the land of my fathers except as a visitor.” For him, the project of settling West represented futurity itself—all of the republic’s hopes for progress depended on the prosperity of places like Illinois.

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