EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region’s history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.

At almost 300 pages, Joseph Lambert, Jr.’s “The Political Transformation of David Tod: Governing Ohio during the Height of the Civil War” is a must read for local history buffs as well as for Civil War enthusiasts.

Recently published by Kent University Press, the title is an engaging study of political transformation. Born in a log cabin at Brier Hill in 1802, Tod was a popular Ohio jurist and state senator before becoming governor in 1862. Prior to this, he had excelled as U.S. ambassador to Brazil during a diplomatic rupture. His success in restoring relations between the two countries propelled him onto the national stage.

The author reminds us that the 1787 Northwest Ordinance created the territory from which Ohio gained admission as a state in 1803, and that since inception, the region had prohibited slavery. But the southern tier of Ohio, the area bordering the slave states of Kentucky and Maryland, leaned politically in the opposite direction. Thus Tod’s entry into Ohio politics meant an unavoidable encounter with the issue of slavery, a subject whose polarizing effect grew yearly.

Young David Tod joined President Andrew Jackson’s Democratic Party that favored the agenda of the small farmer and states’ rights in the matter of slavery. Lambert deftly reveals Tod as anti-slavery in temperament but equivocal in his public stances on the issue and, in some cases, opportunist in not wanting to alienate voters during his political campaigns. Victorious in 1862, Tod served one term as Ohio’s governor during a time of national crisis.

In the run up to the Civil War, Tod firmly had aligned his politics with those of another Democrat, Stephen Douglas, who believed that despite the immorality of slavery, the Constitution affirmed its practice. Stirring the pot was the insatiable hunger of Southern slave power to expand slavery into the western territories. The two Democrats’ position eventually would be critically tested.

Lambert’s narrative takes the reader through the contentious presidential election of 1860. Incredibly, the Democratic Party split into three factions, each promoting its own candidate. This effectively made Lincoln, the Republican Party’s nominee, the 16th president and led Tod to join the new president’s Union party.

After the rebel attack on Fort Sumter, it became clear to northern governors that the Union must be saved. Tod worried that Cincinnati and other southern Ohio communities could be invaded. If Ohio were lost to the Confederacy, the United State would forever splinter.

The first two years of the conflict witnessed disheartening Northern defeats. Moreover, anti-draft violence, opposition to Lincoln’s suppression of habeas corpus, and vocal white opposition to the Proclamation of Emancipation dogged Tod’s efforts to rally support for the Union cause. Readers will find themselves with the governor at Lincoln’s White House during these challenging times. The president valued the Ohioan’s support and counsel. And Tod needed Lincoln’s.

Lambert’s coverage of Confederate John Morgan’s raid into Ohio held my interest. Tod spared no effort in ordering the pursuit of the rebel marauder and his cavalry until their capture. Similarly detailed is the author’s study of Tod’s about-face regarding the recruitment of African Americans into the Union Army — a controversial but important factor in the North’s victory.

How do leaders balance the needs of the nation against their own political goals? What are the levers that move a politician to change positions? How did David Tod’s remarkable transformation on the issues of slavery and state’s rights affect Ohio’s loyalty to the Union? Lambert’s approach to these questions is insightful and informative.

Lariccia is a local researcher and author.