Wrestling With His Angel

The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856

Sidney Blumenthal

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781501153808
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The “magisterial” (The New York Times Book Review) second volume of Sidney Blumenthal’s acclaimed, landmark biography, The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, reveals the future president’s genius during the most decisive period of his political life when he seizes the moment, finds his voice, and helps create a new political party.

In 1849, Abraham Lincoln seems condemned to political isolation and defeat. His Whig Party is broken in the 1852 election, and disintegrates. His perennial rival, Stephen Douglas, forges an alliance with the Southern senators and Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. Violent struggle breaks out on the plains of Kansas, a prelude to the Civil War.

Lincoln rises to the occasion. Only he can take on Douglas in Illinois. He finally delivers the dramatic speech that leaves observers stunned. In 1855, he makes a race for the Senate against Douglas, which he loses when he throws his support to a rival to prevent the election of a proslavery candidate. In Wrestling With His Angel, Sidney Blumenthal explains how Lincoln and his friends operate behind the scenes to destroy the anti-immigrant party in Illinois to clear the way for a new Republican Party. Lincoln takes command and writes its first platform and vaults onto the national stage as the leader of a party that will launch him to the presidency.

The Washington Monthly hailed Blumenthal’s Volume I as, “splendid…no one can come away from reading A Self-Made Man without eagerly anticipating the ensuing volumes.” Pulitzer Prize–winning author Diane McWhorter hailed Volume II as “dramatic narrative history, prophetic and intimate.” Wrestling With His Angel brings Lincoln from the wilderness to the peak of his career as he is determined to enter into the battle for the nation’s soul and to win it for democracy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Timeline of Major Events
• Cast of Major Characters
• Epigraph
• Prologue: Wrestling with His Angel
• One: White Negroes
• Two: The Civil War of Old Rough and Ready
• Three: The Art of the Deal
• Four: The Consequences of the Peace
• Five: What Is to Be Done?
• Six: A Hero’s Welcome
• Seven: The Making of the Dark Horse
• Eight: The Victory March of Old Fuss and Feathers
• Nine: The Death of Henry Clay
• Ten: The Waterloo of the Whigs
• Eleven: The Acting President of the United States
• Twelve: I, Thomas Hart Benton
• Thirteen: The Triumph of the F Street Mess
• Fourteen: A Self-Evident Lie
• Fifteen: Citizen Know Nothing
• Sixteen: The Conquest of Kansas
• Seventeen: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Slavery
• Eighteen: Armed Liberty
• Nineteen: The Failure of Free Society
• Twenty: The Blood of the Revolution
• Twenty-One: Senator Lincoln
• Twenty-Two: The Republican
• Twenty-Three: Destiny and Power
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Illustration Credits
• Copyright