Reflection on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

               This is a cool book that I remember hearing lots of talk about when I was younger. I feel like I was under the impression that this book advocated for building a cabinet out of rivals to achieve better results, but it definitely does not do that. The book does not advocate for anything except for making the case that Abraham Lincoln was a “political genius” and certainly very wise. The book follows him and his cabinet members, principally William Seward, Secretary of State, Salmon Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, and Edward Bates, the Attorney General. Other key characters are the two different Secretaries of War, first Simon Cameron, and afterwards Edwin M. Stanton, the Postmaster General, Montgomery Blair, and the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles. This is a book about the actions of and relationships between those cabinet members on a background of what amounts to essentially a biography of the later life of Abraham Lincoln.

               The early chapters of the book, really almost the first half of it, cover the personal lives and careers of Seward, Chase, Bates, and Lincoln. Seward was a jovial man and a talker who lost his father at a young age. He rose up in New York politics and became a popular politician thanks to a partnership with newspaperman and political handler Thurlow Weed and a very good wife, Frances. Frances was a staunch abolitionist and Seward himself became one on an 1835 trip to the South. He won the governorship of New York in 1840 and 42. He was a moderate and the presumed nominee of the Republican Party in 1860, being that he was the most popular man in the party. Salmon Chase was a foil to Seward. He was not very friendly at all and probably made more bitter by the fact that he was widowed three times. He had a daughter, Kate Chase, who made her father’s political goals her own goals in life and promoted his ambitions as much as possible. Speaking of his ambitions, he was very ambitious. He had started his career after gaining fame for protecting an abolitionist publisher’s house against a mob and then for serving as an abolitionist lawyer. He developed a close partnership with future Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. As he tried to gain the Republican nomination in 1860, he was the governor of Ohio. Edward Bates was a successful St. Louis lawyer and a true family man who loved his wife and 18 kids. After some experience as a state and federal legislator in Whig circles, he went to the River and Harbor Convention and made a serious impression, being elected president of the convention and earning himself a national reputation due to a speech he made. Lincoln was the least likely of the four of them to win the nomination in 1860. He had won four terms to the Illinois state legislature and supported Whig ideas, like a national bank and tariffs, but in the state legislature he only made progress on internal improvements, mainly in infrastructure. He married Mary Todd in 1842 after a depressive episode. Mary came from a wealthy family but had to work hard and suffer with her new husband who had very little money. He lost two elections to the Senate in Illinois, but in 1858 gained fame for debates he did around the state with his opponent, Stephen A. Douglas. He was very talented at analogies. Where Seward might reference Classical Greece, Lincoln might have referenced something more everyday and understandable.

               Lincoln won the Republican nomination after several ballots, as he had made himself everyone’s second choice. That was a good move since Seward did not have the thing locked up and once everyone saw that their candidate would not win, they would look for compromise, compromising on Lincoln. He then won the election of 1860 because the Southerners were divided on their candidates. Early in his presidency, Lincoln needed to make sure that border states, especially Maryland, did not secede, and in his inaugural address, Lincoln said that he had “no lawful power” or even an inclination to interfere with slavery. But by the spring of 1862, Lincoln was already thinking seriously about abolition, getting ready to draft the Emancipation Proclamation.

I was stunned by the disrespect that General George McClellan demonstrated to his president. This is an excerpt from the book:

He reported a visit to the White House one Sunday after tea, where he found “the original gorrilla,” as he had taken to describing the president. “What a specimen to be at the head of our affairs now!” he ranted. “I went to Seward’s, where I found the ‘Gorilla’ again, & was of course much edified by his anecdotes—ever apropos, & ever unworthy of one holding his high position.”

On Wednesday night, November 13, Lincoln went with Seward and Hay to McClellan’s house. Told that the general was at a wedding, the three waited in the parlor for an hour. When McClellan arrived home, the porter told him the president was waiting, but McClellan passed by the parlor room and climbed the stairs to his private quarters. After another half hour, Lincoln again sent word that he was waiting, only to be informed that the general had gone to sleep.

Lincoln was apparently ready to let this all slide with McClellan if he could get a victory. I remain unconvinced that Lincoln handled this situation well. Lincoln kept McClellan on for a long time in error I think. However, it was smart to get rid of him the day after the midterm elections of 1862, as it may have affected the outcome negatively for Lincoln, so I can’t be sure.

               Lincoln’s management style really lived up to the name “Honest Abe.” He never let subordinates take the blame for his own decisions, and this won him their loyalty and trust. He confronted a really tough situation in December 1862, when Chase started spreading negative rumors about Seward to the Senate, leading Seward, who was the closest cabinet member to Lincoln, to offer his resignation. Chase had been jealous of that relationship. Chase was forced to testify to the Senate, where the same Senators who heard him tell lies about Seward heard him contradict himself in public. In embarrassment he offered Lincoln his resignation. This worked out perfectly for Lincoln since Chase and Seward balanced each other out—Lincoln rejected both resignations. Chase would resign two more times and on the final time Lincoln accepted. Chase had been plotting against him, yet Lincoln decided to make him Chief Justice, not letting personal differences outweigh his own professional opinion.

               Lincoln was also known for his self-confidence. I’m not sure what his “trick” was for this, but he was courageous when against public opinion and did not let himself get hampered by self-doubt. It worked out well for him through the spring of 1863, as July led to victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. It also worked throughout 1864, when he thought he would lose the presidential election until the Union took Atlanta thanks to General Sherman.

               This is a very solid book and it provides good information on the Civil War and specifically high-level, executive branch Union politics during the war. I wish it focused more on the leadership lessons provided by Abraham Lincoln. There was one quote right at the end that I liked, where Goodwin states that, “his political genius was not simply his ability to gather the best men of the country around him, but to impress upon them his own purpose, perception, and resolution at every juncture. With respect to Lincoln’s cabinet, Charles Dana observed, “it was always plain that he was the master and they were the subordinates. They constantly had to yield to his will, and if he ever yielded to them it was because they convinced him that the course they advised was judicious and appropriate.”

Miscellaneous Facts:

• Personal losses were very common for the men of the early 19^th century. Seward, Bates, and Chase all lost their fathers young. Lincoln lost his mother, sister, and first love. Chase also lost three wives to early deaths.
• Lincoln, Seward, Bates, and Chase all opposed the war with Mexico.
• This is not really a “fact,” but it’s worth stating that the South was really at a disadvantage in the Civil War from the very beginning. In the election of 1860, they could not even agree on one Southern candidate, split between the Democrats’ Stephen A. Douglas, the Constitutional Union Party’s John Bell, and another candidate, John C. Breckinridge.
• Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis lost their sons during the war.
• Black participation in the war was absolutely critical to Lincoln’s decision to support abolition. With over 100 thousand black soldiers fighting for the Union, Lincoln pointed out that to go back on his abolition promise would likely lose the war for the North to his opponents.
• The United States Navy grew tremendously during the war, from just 76 to 271 ships and from 7,600 seamen to 51,000.
• Lincoln at one point developed a plan for peace with the Confederacy that offered compensation for slaves that neither his cabinet nor Jefferson Davis would accept. I guess sometimes there is no ability to compromise and somebody just needs to win.