A review by brontherun
The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson by Robert S. Levine
4.0
All in all I found Levine’s The Failed Promise a balanced, extremely well researched history of events during and immediately following the Civil War. Many details were new to me, such as the draft riots of New York City in 1863. The oratorical skills of Andrew Jackson and Fredrick Douglass are highlighted as influencers to policy and actions surrounding the abolitionist movement and the struggle to enact Reconstruction of the former Confederate States.
Johnson’s paternalistic actions and racist views were adequately identified by the author, but he also leads the reader to see how Johnson was not the source of those failures at a country-wide level, but more a representative of many Americans, both Southern and Northern. As Levine says, “There is something shortsighted in conceiving of the failure of Reconstruction as the fault of one white man.” Indeed, the pervasiveness of violence by whites against black throughout the country following emancipation shows the broadness of the evil that was not cleansed from the country by the surrender at Appomattox.
Douglass is a bit romanticized, which is typical of great men in history books. His work, particularly with his incredibly impactful speeches, is chronicled well. The fact that either through printing or via lecture circuits, his passion and conviction swayed the white listeners in addition to the black audiences, was what gave him so much power. And as that power rose, some sought to bring him down, while others like Lincoln and Johnson would have tried to leverage it to their own ends. Douglass was intelligent enough and seemingly savvy enough to avoid some of the political traps, at least according to this account.
If you read American History at all, I highly recommend reading this book.
Johnson’s paternalistic actions and racist views were adequately identified by the author, but he also leads the reader to see how Johnson was not the source of those failures at a country-wide level, but more a representative of many Americans, both Southern and Northern. As Levine says, “There is something shortsighted in conceiving of the failure of Reconstruction as the fault of one white man.” Indeed, the pervasiveness of violence by whites against black throughout the country following emancipation shows the broadness of the evil that was not cleansed from the country by the surrender at Appomattox.
Douglass is a bit romanticized, which is typical of great men in history books. His work, particularly with his incredibly impactful speeches, is chronicled well. The fact that either through printing or via lecture circuits, his passion and conviction swayed the white listeners in addition to the black audiences, was what gave him so much power. And as that power rose, some sought to bring him down, while others like Lincoln and Johnson would have tried to leverage it to their own ends. Douglass was intelligent enough and seemingly savvy enough to avoid some of the political traps, at least according to this account.
If you read American History at all, I highly recommend reading this book.