Ohio History Journal

  • 1
  •  
  • 2
  •  
  • 3
  •  
  • 4
  •  
  • 5
  •  
  • 6
  •  
  • 7
  •  
  • 8
  •  
  • 9
  •  
  • 10
  •  
  • 11
  •  
  • 12
  •  
  • 13
  •  
  • 14
  •  
  • 15
  •  
  • 16
  •  
  • 17
  •  
  • 18
  •  
  • 19
  •  
  • 20
  •  
  • 21
  •  
  • 22
  •  
  • 23
  •  
  • 24
  •  
  • 25
  •  
  • 26
  •  
  • 27
  •  
  • 28
  •  

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

 

 

In the Name of the People: Speeches and Writings of Lincoln and

Douglas in the Ohio Campaign of 1859. Edited by Harry V. Jaffa

and Robert W. Johannsen. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press

for the Ohio Historical Society, 1959. xii??307p. $5.00.)

The historically minded are having a field day in these years of the

1950's and 1960's in constant centennial celebration of the events con-

nected with the Civil War. Real contributions to the literature of

history are emerging which will be of lasting value. There has always

been a gap between the well-known Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858

and Lincoln's celebrated Cooper Union speech of 1860. Lincoln and

Douglas in fact continued debating in 1859 and made significant in-

tellectual efforts that heretofore have remained largely inaccessible in

uncollected documents. As this debate took place in Ohio, it is most

appropriate that the Ohio Historical Society should project a publica-

tion edited in part by a professor of political science from Ohio State

University and published by the press of that institution. Professor

Jaffa, the author of The Crisis of the House Divided, a very penetrating

analysis of the debate of 1858, and Professor Johannsen of the Univer-

sity of Illinois, an authority on squatter sovereignty, have brought to-

gether the 1859 contributions of Lincoln and Douglas, which they are

publishing for the first time.

The editors not only supply the text but they describe the setting

and analyze the argument. The latter demonstration shows clearly

that the positions of the two debaters were both logically consistent

with the spirit of democracy, both parts of the same doctrine. Douglas

argued for the right of self-government. Lincoln argued for the recog-

nition of the equality of men before the law. This contest emphasizes

an occasional inner conflict in democracy between the will of the ma-

jority and the rights of the individual. The continuance of this never-

ending debate to Professor Jaffa is evidence of the basic integrity of

the idea and tradition of popular self-government.

The editors likewise demonstrate that the main purpose of this con-

test was not dialectical so much as political. Douglas was seeking an

ambiguous formula which would permit northern and southern Demo-