The Civil War and Reconstruction periods in United States history are widely viewed as a “second founding” of the nation—one that sought to bring the American regime into better alignment with the aspirations articulated at the first founding. Among the figures involved in shaping this new start for the American republic, Lyman Trumbull played an instrumental role. As the chairman of the influential Senate Judiciary Committee, Trumbull advanced the most important legislation of both the Civil War and Reconstruction, including the First and Second Confiscation Acts, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863, the 1866 Freedmen’s Bureau Act, and the Military Reconstruction Acts. Most significantly, he was the principal author and driver of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery permanently throughout the United States. On the basis of the Thirteenth Amendment, he also authored the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the nation’s first civil rights law, which protected the fundamental rights of all Americans, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Despite being arguably the greatest legislative architect of America’s second founding, Trumbull later turned his back on the Reconstruction that he helped initiate. Worried that Reconstruction was going too far and lasting too long, he eventually embraced a rigid and uncompromising view of states’ rights, rejecting his own previous defense of the national government’s ultimate power and responsibility to secure the privileges and immunities of US citizenship. Paul Rego’s study of Trumbull’s political and constitutional thought is a much-needed exploration of this key figure in Civil War and Reconstruction history. Like the framers of the first founding, Trumbull was complex and contradictory—a symbol of both the nation’s rebirth and its lost promise, as responsible for the period’s disappointments as he was for its triumphs. This is a long overdue book on one of the forgotten framers of the United States. Lyman Trumbull and the Second Founding of the United States examines the political and constitutional thought of Trumbull. Understanding Trumbull is essential to a comprehensive understanding of American political and legal development, especially during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Excerpt from The Life of Lyman Trumbull A few years since, the widow of Lyman Trumbull requested me to write a biography of her husband, who was United States Senator from Illinois during the three senatorial terms 1855 - 1873, or to recommend some suit able person for the task. It had been a cause of surprise and regret to me that the name of Trumbull had not yet found a place in the swelling flood of biographical litera ture that embraces the Civil War period. Everybody, North or South, who stood on the same elevation with him, everybody who exercised influence and filled the public eye in equal measure with him, had found his niche in the libraries of the nation, and such place in the hearts of the people as his merits warranted. Trumbull alone had been neglected. I reflected upon the matter and came to the conclusion that, although better writers than myself could be found for this kind of work, no one was likely to be found who had been more intimate with him during his whole senatorial career, or who had warmer sympathy for his aims or higher admiration for his abili ties and character. I reflected also that very soon there would be no person living possessing these special qualifi cations. Accordingly I decided to undertake the work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.