In the first biography on Trumbull in over fifty years, Rego uniquely frames his account around the vital political and constitutional questions of the late nineteenth century. Rego provides an accessible, compelling, and timely new biography on the man who helped secure the Union and embodied both the successes and missed opportunities of Reconstruction.

In Lyman Trumbull and the Second Founding of the United States, Paul M. If there was one person through which one can explore these consequential yet notoriously misunderstood years, there is perhaps none better than the complex and contradictory senator from Illinois, Lyman Trumbull. Amid this progress, however, are numerous reversals well known to historians who have analyzed the postwar era from a variety of angles, including that of politics, society, labor, and military history, to name but a few. Indeed, the unique language of the Reconstruction amendments (Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth), which granted unprecedented enforcement powers to Congress to forever alter American society, have led scholars to increasingly see this era as a second founding. Reconstruction as an incomplete revolution has been the widely accepted narrative of the post-Civil War years since the publication of Eric Foner’s seminal Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 in 1988. Reviewed by Peter Porsche (Baylor University)Ĭommissioned by G.

Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2022. Lyman Trumbull and the Second Founding of the United States.Īmerican Political Thought Series.

The second founding book review