Doris Kearns Goodwin: Author of Team of Rivals
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book undoubtedly deserved the Pulitzer Prize, but it is a typical example of books written about Lincoln where the writer leaves out statements that if connected do not substantiate the mythical picture surrounding Lincoln. In going unchallenged by writers such as Goodwin, there statements have caused history to be distorted.
A core question that Goodwin and others should answer is how popular sovereignty (allowing the extension of slavery into the Kansas-Nebraska Territories) brought about the breakup of the Whig and Democrat Parties and the formation of the Republican Party. The main reason offered was northern opposition to slavery and its cruelty, but since slavery was not about to take over the territories, and northerners were not demanding to free southern slaves, then using that as the reason has a hollow ring to it. Since the Republican anti-slavery territorial extension platform did not go so far as to advocate the freeing of southern slaves then Goodwin should…show more content… I don’t think most northerners would have been too concerned about “allowing” slavery if the abolitionists and the Republicans hadn’t replaced the word allowing slavery to “extending” slavery. Leading southerners had favored gradual emancipation and colonization. Jefferson, as did Lincoln favored colonization, and southern planters and political leaders dominated the American Colonization Association. Clay and Madison had been presidents of the association. These southern leaders were not referring to colonizing the American west, but they did believe southern slave owners should be allowed to take their property (slaves) into the
