The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics

by Sean Wilentz

Overview

One of our most eminent historians reminds us of the commanding role party politics has played in America’s enduring struggle against economic inequality.

“There are two keys to unlocking the secrets of American politics and American political history.” So begins The Politicians & the Egalitarians, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz’s bold new work of history.

First, America is built on an egalitarian tradition. At the nation’s founding, Americans believed that extremes of wealth and want would destroy their revolutionary experiment in republican government. Ever since, that idea has shaped national political conflict and scored major egalitarian victories—from the Civil War and Progressive eras to the New Deal and the Great Society—along the way.

Second, partisanship is a permanent fixture in America, and America is the better for it. Every major egalitarian victory in United States history has resulted neither from abandonment of partisan politics nor from social movement protests but from a convergence of protest and politics, and then sharp struggles led by principled and effective party politicians. There is little to be gained from the dream of a post-partisan world.

With these two insights Sean Wilentz offers a crystal-clear portrait of American history, told through politicians and egalitarians including Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, and W. E. B. Du Bois—a portrait that runs counter to current political and historical thinking. As he did with his acclaimed The Rise of American Democracy, Wilentz once again completely transforms our understanding of this nation’s political and moral character.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393285017
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/17/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Sean Wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University and author of the Bancroft Prize–winning The Rise of American Democracy, Bob Dylan in America, and many other works. He is completing his next book, No Property in Man, on slavery, antislavery, and the Constitution, based on his Nathan I. Huggins Lectures delivered at Harvard in 2015.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition xiii

Introduction xix

I Two Keys to American History

1 The Postpartisan Style in American Politics 3

2 America's Forgotten Egalitarian Tradition 31

II The Politicians and the Egalitarians

3 Thomas Paine: The Origins of American Egalitarianism 69

4 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Thomas Jefferson 84

5 John Quincy Adams: Slavery's Arch-Enemy 125

6 John Brown: The Temptation of Terror 148

7 Abraham Lincoln: Egalitarian Politician 170

8 Democracy at Gettysburg, 1863 213

9 The Steel Town and the Gilded Age 233

10 W. E. B. Du Bois: A Heroic Education 250

11 Theodore Roosevelt: Politics and Folly 267

12 The Liberals and the Leftists 280

13 The Cold War and the Perils of Junk History 295

14 Lyndon B. Johnson: The Triumph of Politics 307

Bibliographic Notes and References 333

Acknowledgments 347

Index 349

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/08/2016
Wilentz, author of the Bancroft Prize–winning Rise of American Democracy and professor of history at Princeton University, once again proves himself to be among America’s most skilled (and pugilistic) historians with this brisk, hard-hitting book. He tries, with some success, to rescue liberalism from its detractors on the left and right by arguing that, at its best, liberalism has succeeded through pragmatic, principled politics as well as ideals. Wilentz also convincingly argues that efforts to reduce economic and other inequalities have been a constant in the nation’s history. (It should be noted that he doesn’t stress that counterefforts have also been a constant.) He makes his case principally by taking up other historians’ work about major historical figures: Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, W.E.B. Dubois, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson chief among them. Sometimes Wilentz praises their work, but he’s at his energetic best when on the attack against detractors of his foregrounded great men, and he doesn’t hesitate to describe some histories as “nonsense” and “junk.” In other hands, this would seem silly and lacking force; in Wilentz’s, it’s authoritative and telling. The result is wonderfully readable and the best kind of serious, sharp argumentation from one of the leading historians of the United States. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Wilentz evinces a vast knowledge of the American past while exploring, in his unique way, the interplay between raw party politics and the ebb and flow of reform efforts. In offering his take on pivotal figures from Jefferson to Du Bois, Lincoln to LBJ, Wilentz challenges us to debate history and ideas in a way that honors the best of the democratic system he has written about so provocatively throughout his career. Even when I most disagree with him, his arguments are always vigorous and passionate, lively and engaging."

Henry Louis Gates

"This stimulating book provides a major new interpretation of the alliance between egalitarian social movements and partisan politics to achieve some of the most notable liberal victories in the American past. Sean Wilentz has done more than anyone else to blend social and political history in a manner that offers powerful new insights."

James M. McPherson

"A bracing and persuasive defense of political partisanship as essential to a functioning democracy, and a timely reminder that from the country’s earliest days, political struggle has been the most effective mechanism for moving America toward the egalitarian ideals enunciated in its founding documents. It is a message that American citizens should never forget."

Annette Gordon-Reed

"Wilentz sets forth a provocative idea that may provide vital perspective to the politics of this very year."

Boston Globe

"Sean Wilentz is a rare historian who writes with confidence about the entire scope of American history and who does so in a way accessible to a broad reading public. The Politicians & the Egalitarians, like his previous books, is sure to command attention."

Eric Foner

"A shrewd and engaging assessment of the variable American tradition of egalitarianism, particularly as manifested in the political lives of Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, right up through Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society—scrupulously detailed, elegantly written, incisively argued, and effectively combative."

Philip Roth

"Engrossing and deeply enriching…Wilentz the historian is visiting the past to send a message to those of us who live in the 21st century."

|Los Angeles Times

05/15/2016
Wilentz (George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History, Princeton Univ.), author of the Bancroft Prize-winning The Rise of American Democracy, a definitive sweeping political history of the antebellum period, here argues that economic and social equality are goals that have defined American political discourse since the country's founding. More so than ideological homogeneity, political partisanship and its trials have been and are still essential components for achieving those aims. All the personages covered in this book were embedded in an age in which partisanship was the temper of the times, and simultaneously iconic symbols of egalitarianism: for instance, Thomas Paine's entreaties to American independence, John Quincy Adams and antislavery in the antebellum period, and the Homestead Strike and organized labor. Each chapter is essentially a book review or two in context, including an evaluation of Michael Kazin's American Dreamers, of which the author is especially critical, and which could be read in conjunction with this volume. VERDICT Wilentz's examples support well the thesis of an egalitarian tradition rooted in the dynamic of partisan politics from Thomas Jefferson to Lyndon B. Johnson and up to the present. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 12/14/15.]—Jeffrey J. Dickens, Southern Connecticut State Univ. Libs., New Haven

Library Journal

As Wilentz examines the value of politics in securing the American democratic dream, narrator Joe Barrett gives life to what could have been a tedious historical discourse. His pace is good, and he slows slightly when making vital points. Varying his tone to suit the material, he keeps the sometimes highly detailed text from becoming dry. Overall, Barrett delivers the narrative the way many students might wish their instructors delivered lectures. He also adopts hints of accents to indicate direct quotes, with uneven success, but this hardly detracts from his overall effectiveness. The author’s defense of politicians is especially insightful in today’s anti-Washington climate. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2016 - AudioFile

★ 2016-01-18
A stern, thoroughly satisfying harangue on the realities of politics in the United States by the veteran, prizewinning historian. Wilentz (American History/Princeton Univ.; Bob Dylan in America, 2010, etc.) emphasizes that two key factors of politics, ignored by lesser historians, are essential. The first—sure to jolt even educated readers—is that partisanship and party politics are essential to effective government. The Founding Fathers deplored it, and today's presidential candidates assure us that they detest career politicians. Reformers denounce them, and Americans "want government conducted in a lofty manner, without adversarial confrontation and chaos. But more than two hundred years of antipartisanship has produced nothing," writes the author. "This is because, despite their intentions, the framers built a political system which inspired partisan politics." The second factor—less controversial but no less surprising—is that Americans hate economic privilege. Everyone agrees that vast material inequality threatens democracy. The author argues that the fight for racial and sexual equality during the 1960s and '70s made that period an anomaly, and the conservative swing begun by President Ronald Reagan obscured it, but it returned with a vengeance after the economic crash of 2008. Conservatives today place less emphasis on moral arguments for a free market in favor of claiming that cutting taxes and government will provide jobs and eliminate poverty. Never shy about scolding colleagues, Wilentz maintains that the vogue of denigrating Thomas Jefferson has gone overboard, but he joins in the revival of the reputations of Thomas Paine and Lyndon Johnson. The author deplores the current fashion for giving idealistic outsiders credit for forcing crass politicians to do the right thing. Abolitionists did not compel Abraham Lincoln to promote emancipation, and Johnson supported civil rights long before he took office. A master scholar delivers a delightfully stimulating historical polemic.

Kirkus Reviews