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By Root 1649 0

and Christopher Gardner, Robert Hicks, Justin Stelter, Kate Livie and Ben Ford, the Worth family, Trevor Potter and Dana Westring, and Max Blumberg and Eduardo Araujo for relieving my labors with idyllic interludes in their various corners of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—as well as for their love and friendship. The late Ted Phillips and Janet Hopkins gave me a memorable introduction to Charleston and the South Carolina lowcountry. Allan Gurganus and I began a conversation about history in Hillsborough, North Carolina, that has continued among the named and nameless ghosts of Rapa Nui and Washington, D.C.

They say that writing is solitary work, and I suppose that’s true, but it helps to have friends who toil at lonely keyboards of their own. For comradeship-in-arms (or in aching wrists), I salute Ben Anastas, Louis Bayard, Casey Cep, Sewell Chan, Trey Graham, Emily Kaiser, Donna Lucey, Thomas Mallon, Stephen Metcalf, Jonathan Rauch, Hank Stuever, Eric Tipler, David Vine, and Henry Wiencek. Tanti abbracci to my peerless compare Robert Worth, to Alice Clapman, to Felix Worth—and especially to Zack Worth.

I have been lucky to write for, with, and learn from, some of the most gifted editors in journalism, many of them also friends: John Bethell, Robert Wilson, Stephen Smith, Nelson Aldrich, John Rosenberg, Glenn Oeland, Alex Star, Alida Becker, Nathan Lump, Katy Roberts, Mary Suh, Regan Solmo, Dennis Drabelle, Tom Frail, and Elizabeth Hightower. Sam Tanenhaus has pushed me hard, in the best way possible. David Shipley, George Kalogerakis, and Clay Risen turned me, surprisingly, into a blogger. Anne Fadiman continues to be my literary beau ideal, as well as a treasured friend and loyal mentor.

At the Wylie Agency, I thank Andrew Wylie, Sarah Chalfant, Scott Moyers, Jacqueline Ko—and especially the indomitable, indefatigable Jin Auh. Zoe Pagnamenta guided me expertly to a publisher. At Knopf, I have been lucky indeed to work with George Andreou, who wields his editorial rapier with the elegance of a Carolina duelist, and with his trusty second, Lily Evans. Thanks, too, to designer Michael Collica for his role in putting my words onto these pages.

Last of all, but actually first of all, the Goodhearts—Mom, Dad, Harry, Mark, Danielle, Avery, T.K., Herb, Karen, and David, as well as the no-less-good-hearted Lauren Krenzel and Natalie Levant—I love you more than words, printed or otherwise, can say.

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I feel privileged every time I walk into the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress, a room that Henry James said “crowns itself with grace.” James—who found little else to admire in Washington—is no longer there, but the room is, little changed, and it’s where I wrote much of this book. I owe a debt to those who have preserved its splendor and its soul in the midst of this most un-Jamesian age.

Outside, much has changed in Washington, and in the rest of the country, even since I began to write. I remember leaving the library late one afternoon in January 2009. I walked down the front steps, and right in front of me, lit by the setting sun, was the Capitol: the dome with its statue of Freedom that a slave forged, the steps where Lincoln spoke of mystic chords of memory, the wide expanse where the Zouaves played baseball on the grass beneath the chestnut trees. The grass is gone now, and the chestnut trees: the historic landscape was replaced several years ago by a sterile and soulless plaza, and by a visitor center that allows people to “experience” our great national edifice without actually going inside. But I’d like to think that the old place is still there, somewhere beneath.

INDEX

Location numbering in italics refer to illustrations. Location numbering beginning with nts or nts1 refer to endnotes.

abolition, abolitionists, prl.1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 7.1, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1, 9.2, nts.1

in Boston, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1

in Missouri, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4

in Ohio, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, nts.1

Pierce, E. L., as, 8.1, 8.2

Academy of