No American president -- not even George Washington -- is as well known as Abraham Lincoln, a man who served a lone term as congressman before being elected president. As author Roy Morris, Jr. writes, Lincoln's fellow Illinoisan Sen. Stephen Douglas was "the most famous and controversial politician" in the United States for two decades, yet is practically an unknown today apart from his role in the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
And yet, argues Morris in The Long Pursuit -- Abraham Lincoln's Thirty-Year Struggle With Stephen Douglas For The Heart And Soul Of America, "had it not been for Douglas, who served as Lincoln's personal goad, pace horse, and measuring stick, there would have been no Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, no Lincoln presidency in 1860, and perhaps no Civil War six months later. For both men -- and for the nation itself -- the stakes were that high."
Had it not been for Douglas, the author writes, "Lincoln would have remained merely a good trial lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, known locally for his droll sense of humor, bad jokes, and slightly nutty wife. Nationally, he was barely known at all." Morris, editor of Military Heritage magazine, is the author of four books on the Civil War and post-Civil War eras. His new book, he says, is the first extensive study of Stephen Douglas in more than 30 years.
