A History of the American People - In Five Volumes, Vol. IV. Critical Changes and Civil War 12+

📓 Not a little strength of character underlay Mr. Van Buren’s bland exterior, his conciliating manners, his air of sweet accommodation. He was also, in his way, a consummate master of men. He mastered them by insight, by intimate and friendly counsel, and by knowing the end he sought. But he did not rule or dominate by force of will. That slender little gentleman, always courteous, always placid, always ready to listen, and wait to have his way, could not hold or rule the imagination as the rugged veteran did who had preceded him…—from Chapter II: “The Bank and the Treasury”Before he served as the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921, before he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, THOMAS WOODROW WILSON (1856–1924) was a lawyer and an academic: a university professor of history and politics, and president of Princeton University. It was during his tenure at Princeton that he penned this five-volume history of the United States, and it reflects many of the biases he later brought to national politics, from racial prejudice to anti-immigration attitudes.In Volume IV, Wilson discusses the “Democratic revolution” of the 1820s and 1830s, introduces us to the great figures of the day—including Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and many others—and delves deep into the tumultuous years of the Civil War, when the United States faced the greatest threat to its existence. The appendix offers an illuminating parallel comparison of the U.S...