From abject poverty to undisputed political boss of Pennsylvania, Lincoln s secretary of war, senator, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a founder of the Republican Party, Simon Cameron (1799 1889)was one of the nineteenth century s most prominent political figures. In his wake, however, he left a series of questionable political and business dealings and, at the age of eighty, even a sex scandal.

Far more than a biography of Cameron, Amiable Scoundrel is also a portrait of an era that allowed indeed, encouraged a man such as Cameron to seize political...