Mark E. Neely, Jr.

The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the

Promise of America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1995. v + 214 pp.

The calamitous and bloody events know as the Civil War defined the future of

America and the greatness of its leader. Would the unity of the nation be secured or

would the great experiment in republicanism succumb to sectional strife? Would the

institution of slavery destroy the United States or would President Lincoln, “nobly save,

or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth” (p. 156)? Mark Neely explores these

questions and more while considering the most remarkable aspects of Abraham Lincoln’s

life. Neely examines Lincoln’s political life from the Illinois House to the Presidency

providing an examination of his actions and beliefs and how he preserved the Union.

The context for Lincoln’s Presidency is established through glimpses into his life

before he gained national recognition. He first sought elected office in 1832, as a

candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives, “only a few months before he had

been ‘friendless, uneducated, penniless,’ but he was going to give politics a try” (p. 7).

Although Lincoln lost the election he took solace and encouragement in how many

people did vote for him and made another attempt for the Illinois House in 1834 that

resulted in success. Neely points out that “Lincoln entered politics before he chose a

profession or married,” he had found “his first love” (p. 9).

The realities of Illinois and the desperate need for internal improvements naturally

drew Lincoln to the Whig party and a term in the United States House; however, the

trouble brewing from territorial expansion and the forth coming Kansas – Nebraska Act

brought slavery to the forefront of Lincoln’s political life and him to the forefront of the

new Republican Party. Neely states that in 1845 Lincoln showed little concern about
slavery or “slave power;” yet, during his tenure in Congress he was “forced” to “take

more notice” and recorded yes votes on the Wilmot Proviso (pp. 24-26). The Kansas-

Nebraska Act passed after he had returned to Illinois from his term in the House;

however, the Act more than anything else moved Lincoln towards politics again. The act

Neely labeled as “perhaps the most explosive legislation ever passed” shattered the

assumptions of many who assumed slavery was destined to die (p. 32). Lincoln’s

political ideology concerning slavery moved from little concern in 1845, to abhorring it’s

expansion made possible by Kansas-Nebraska and Lecompton, to his declaration in 1858

that “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” to the Presidential election of 1860 (p.

46).

Throughout his Presidency, Lincoln displayed a “carefully crafted nationalism”

that could be seen as early as 1850 (p. 156). This nationalism and a pragmatic approach

to life and politics can be seen throughout Lincoln’s presidency. Neely illustrates

Lincoln’s pragmatism by offering that he did not “see war as a complex cultural

phenomenon” but as a “simple enterprise with clear measures of success and failure,” a

concept many of his early generals failed to grasp (pp. 81-82). Lincoln’s nationalism can

be defined in many ways; however, for him the starting point of the Union itself began

with the Declaration of Independence. Neely illustrates hat in his Gettysburg Address

Lincoln dates the “founding, not from the Constitution of 1787 but from . . .1776” (p.

154). Perhaps the most concise offering Neely provides for Lincoln’s nationalism is his

second inaugural address where Lincoln states, “Both parties deprecated war; but one of

them would make war rather than let the nation survive and the other would accept war

rather than let it perish” (pp. 154-155).

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 Lincoln did save the Union and protected the “last best hope of earth” even

though it cost him his life. He provided leadership that was rational, reasoned and

pragmatic, but most of all he provided leadership that was national not sectional not

sectional. Lincoln believed in the supremacy of the Constitution and the Union and

would have agreed with his Secretary of the Treasury who wrote after his assassination

what a great lesson the world should learn from the “national calamity” America had

endured, that “an event that would have shaken any other country to the centre does not

even stagger for a moment a Government like ours” (p. 193). Mark Neely offers an

insightful look at Abraham Lincoln from his early political career, through his ideological

evolution on slavery, and ultimately to his time as the President. The author humbly

offers that, “as commander in chief, who must combine military perception with political

vision and the skillful handling of personalities, Lincoln had no superior in American

history” (p. 92).

William R. Cox, American Public University

4075725
Hist. 552, K001 Spring 2010
Dr. Steven Woodworth