Forget the marbled halls, grandiloquent orations, and fiery debates of the United States Congress! The real action in antebellum politics, according to historian Rachel Shelden, occurred in the bars, boardinghouses, backrooms, and bordellos of Washington City. It was in the gambling dens and at the “terrific drinking parties,” she contends in Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War, where the real deal-making and wire-pulling was accomplished (127). Rather than a political history, Washington Brotherhood is a cultural analysis; it has more to do with the “social life” of DC denizens than it does with “politics” or “the coming of the Civil War.” Nevertheless, it is a welcome addition to the historiography of antebellum America and the current renaissance in nineteenth-century political scholarship.

Shelden is primarily interested in the “unofficial” political arena and “private spaces” of the capital city (2–3). Building on the innovative work of James Young in The Washington Community, 1800–1828 (1966), Shelden draws connections between social habits, living arrangements, and legislation. Congress, she asserts, was not the place of “real politicking and decision making” (17, original emphasis). Rather, that was the array of social venues and associations where politicos met to debate the issues and settle their differences. All that drama in the House and Senate? Mostly “buncombe,” she concludes (37–38).

To support this interpretation, Shelden employs critical moments in antebellum political history to explore facets of Washington life – each chapter starts with an event which leads to a discussion of the social context. These chapters, however, have little to do with actual events themselves, and offer little insight into policymaking and legislation. Chapter 1, for instance, ostensibly deals with Wilmot's proviso (1846), but the focus of the chapter is on Congressional seating arrangements, Capitol acoustics, and the nature of “political theater” (39). Though she raises critical questions about the veracity of the Congressional Globe (an invaluable resource for political scholars), she does not seriously alter our understanding of the motives behind, and debates about, the proviso. Likewise, chapter 2 takes the 1848 Whig Party presidential nomination as a starting point for diving into the dizzying world of Washington fraternal associations, chapter 3 uses the crises of 1850 to examine the dynamics of DC dinner parties, chapter 4 pairs the Kanas–Nebraska Act (1854) with a discussion of living arrangements, chapter 5 analyzes the caning of Charles Sumner (1856) in terms of the capital's culture of violence and vice, chapter 6 explores the importance of personal relationships amidst debates over the Lecompton Constitution of Kansas (1857–58), and the final chapter looks at the secession crisis (1860–61) through the lens of friendships.

Each chapter reinforces Shelden's central argument that northern and southern politicians had far more in common than we previously believed; that their “cross-sectional” boardinghouses, gambling clubs, and booze-soaked soirées mitigated sectionalism (110). Like her adviser Michael Holt, she is eager to minimize the centrality of slavery and partisanship and emphasize ethno-cultural dynamics. “Patterns of social life outside of Congress and the cabinet departments had become so ingrained by 1860 that even the secession crisis could not break them,” she concludes in chapter 7. Such an assertion, however, leaves the reader with a nagging question: if everyone in the federal government was getting along so well, then how and why did secession occur? Tackling this critical query is not Shelden's objective, though she does suggest that secession was caused by “external pressure” on Washington politicians (190). Another aspect of the book that might trouble some readers is the frequent lists of federal personalities with no explanation of careers, issues, or views. To establish her “cross-sectional” associations, Shelden shows that members hailed from both slave and free states, but offers no other information. Thus the book requires a basic familiarity with the characters and political movements of the 1850s. If you know much about the career of Robert Toombs of Georgia, for example, you'll better appreciate why his close relationships with anti-slavery northerners are so surprising (and important).

Washington Brotherhood is well written and a pure pleasure to read. Shelden is at her best when she takes the reader outside the hallowed halls of power and into the private world of the most powerful men in the nation. Shelden frees America's antebellum statesmen from the lifeless pages of the Congressional Globe and their dour daguerrotypes, revealing them to be funny and flawed, emotional and empathetic. Not only is this vital to our understanding of antebellum culture, but it's also a heck of a lot of fun.