| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 259 words from this article are provided below; about 361 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Doom of Reconstruction: The Liberal Republicans in the Civil War Era. By Andrew L. Slap. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006. xxvi, 306 pp. $70.00, ISBN 978-0-8232-2709-9.)

In The Doom of Reconstruction, Andrew L. Slap seeks to shed new light on the original liberal republican movement by recasting them and repositioning them chronologically. He argues that the true liberal republicans were not the disgruntled anti-Grant men and the opportunistic Horace Greeley, but rather longtime advocates of a true liberal agenda born from the turmoil of the antebellum era. They believed in free trade; limited government; equal suffrage for all men, black and white; and civil service reform. The items on their agenda were meant to prevent tyranny and corruption caused by a large, unrestrained national government, especially an overly powerful president. The true liberal republicans, the author argues, consisted of "twenty-three identifiable members" (p. xx). Some of them are immediately recognizable to students of the era: Lyman Trumbull and Carl Schurz stand out as prominent politicians. Charles Francis Adams and his sons, Charles Jr. and Henry, are also well known. Slap includes eastern editors such as Edwin L. Godkin of the Nation and William Cullen Bryant of the New York Evening Post, and editors of midwestern papers such as Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican and Horace White of the Chicago Tribune. Slap pursues a history of this group from the reformation of the American party system in the 1850s, through the elections of 1876, with the key focus on 1872.

. . .

There are about 361 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.