Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

James Gillespie Blaine served in Congress during the most tumultuous era in American political history. This memoir, written by a man who helped shape the events it describes, offers an insider's ruthlessly candid account of the two decades following Lincoln's assassination. The narrative opens with Andrew Johnson's ascension to the presidency and never looks away from the bloodless warfare between Johnson and the Radical Republicans who controlled Congress. Blaine, a rising party star during these years, gives us the political scheming, the gambles that paid off, the ones that cratered, and the gradual unwinding of Reconstruction. The book spans the contested elections, the backroom deals, and the moment when Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans quietly agreed to abandon Black Americans to the mercy of the former Confederacy. This is not neutral history. It is a partisan's memoir, written by someone who believed deeply in the Republican cause and wanted future generations to understand what had been won and what was being lost.