Review: "Team of Rivals," Doris Kearns Goodwin

By Paul Carrier

Anyone who has a passing familiarity with American history knows that Abraham Lincoln won the Republican presidential nomination in 1860 and went on to capture the White House, setting the stage for the birth of the Confederacy and the outbreak of the Civil War.

But who can name the other, at that time more prominent, hopefuls who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nod that year? All three losing contenders, who initially viewed Lincoln as a political lightweight, went on to play major roles in his administration as he tried to preserve the Union during four bloody years of internecine warfare.

That’s the story Doris Kearns Goodwin brings to dramatic, vivid life in Team of Rivals, which explains how Lincoln’s political savvy led him to give key government posts to William Seward, Salmon P. Chase and Edward Bates, who opposed Lincoln’s bid to lead the Republican ticket in 1860 but later joined his Cabinet.

Goodwin opens with fairly detailed biographical sketches of all four Republican presidential candidates — Lincoln, Seward, Chase and Bates — covering the eventful years leading up to Lincoln’s nomination and election. It isn’t until more than 200 pages into her 750-page account that delegates finally gather in Chicago for the Republican National Convention of 1860. That background information may strike some as ancillary, but it provides context. The 1840s and 1850s were a tumultuous period that requires explication. Readers deserve a full examination of Chase, Seward and Bates, who obviously are not as well known now as they were then. Lincoln, too, comes into sharper focus, as Goodwin notes, “when he is placed side by side with his three contemporaries.”

Lincoln’s Cabinet included Chase as treasury secretary, Seward as secretary of state and Bates as attorney general. But they were not the only Cabinet members who had higher profiles than the man who hired them. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a vocal critic who once described Lincoln as a “long-armed ape”; Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells; and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair fit that bill as well. “Every member of this administration was better known, better educated, and more experienced in public life than Lincoln,” Goodwin writes. Their presence in his inner circle “might have threatened to eclipse” the president, yet Lincoln emerged as “the undisputed captain” of this team of rivals.

Goodwin illustrates how those who underestimated Lincoln did so at their peril. As the Republican National Convention prepared to choose its presidential nominee in 1860, Seward, Chase and Bates did not view Lincoln as a serious opponent. And Lincoln’s rivals continued to jockey for power after the election. When the newly elected Lincoln offered Seward the secretary of state’s job, Seward assumed he and his patron, New York political boss Thurlow Weed, would play a prominent role in selecting the rest of the Cabinet. That did not happen. Once in office, Seward saw the president as a mere figurehead who would do his bidding, until Lincoln set him straight.

“A less confident man might have surrounded himself with personal supporters who would never question his authority,” as President James Buchanan had done, Goodwin writes. Asked why he placed his opponents in his Cabinet, Lincoln replied that he needed the strongest Republicans he could find “to hold our own people together.” Seward, Chase and Bates “were the very strongest men,” Lincoln said, and he “had no right to deprive the country of their services.”

Goodwin offers an engagingly well-rounded portrait of Lincoln that captures his humor, steadfastness and magnanimity. She also explains, time and again, how Lincoln shrewdly outmaneuvered his condescending critics, thanks to keen political instincts and a fine sense of timing that showed he was far more capable than some of his rivals realized. Seward came to see this, eventually describing Lincoln as “the best and wisest man” he had ever known. Stanton, too, became a close, and admiring, friend.

In page after page, Goodwin compellingly chronicles the travails that beset Lincoln throughout the war. It’s nothing short of amazing than one man was strong enough to weather so many storms — personal, political and military — so well. One task alone — finding the right political balance to retain the loyalty of both radical and conservative Republicans — could have been a full-time job. As one initially skeptical observer said in 1864, Lincoln was “the great guiding intellect of the age.”

As for the issue that effectively triggered the Civil War, Team of Rivals makes clear that there were significant philosophical differences among the opponents of slavery, both before and during the war, and that individual views on that all-consuming topic evolved as the war dragged on.

Initially, Lincoln was not an abolitionist. His goal was to prevent the expansion of slavery into the territories and incoming states, not outlaw it or expand the civil rights of free blacks. As such, he was more liberal than Bates, but more conservative than Chase and Seward. Over time, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, welcomed African-Americans into the armed forces and, later still, pushed through a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery. In 1864, Lincoln even appointed Chase as chief justice of the Supreme Court, even though Chase had repeatedly maligned Lincoln and even tried to block his reelection. Lincoln made the appointment, at least in part, because he knew Chase would champion the legal rights of African-Americans.

Charles Dana, a newspaperman who later became assistant secretary of war, said of Lincoln and his Cabinet: “It was always plain that he was the master and they were his 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.” Goodwin explains that relationship with skill, scholarship and verve, allowing readers to not only see but feel how Lincoln assembled, led, respected, occasionally heeded, and even loved his team of rivals.

Review: "The Bully Pulpit," Doris Kearns Goodwin

By Paul Carrier

Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the muckrakers of the Progressive Era have had their share of biographers. In one sense, then, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin finds herself treading a well-traveled path in her latest book.

But The Bully Pulpit takes an innovative approach to these two presidents, journalists Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens, and other reformers in their circle. It does so by exploring, in one volume, how their lives and missions intersected more than a century ago.

In effect, Goodwin has written a biography of the early stages of a movement, as seen through the eyes of some of its key players, both political and journalistic. She focuses on the initially close friendship between Roosevelt and Taft, as well as the role crusading reporters played in pushing the changes Roosevelt and Taft championed before Woodrow Wilson defeated both of them to capture the presidency in 1912.

Goodwin writes that her “process of discovery” led her to realize the tale she tells here has “three interwoven strands.” One is the story of Roosevelt, who crusaded to expand the role of government. Another is the story of Taft, a leading Roosevelt ally who later “found himself at sea” when he succeeded Roosevelt as president in 1909. Goodwin says Taft floundered in large part because he was “temperamentally unsuited to make use of the story’s third strand - the bully pulpit that had provided the key to his predecessor’s success.”

With 752 pages of text, plus notes, index, etc., this is a hefty tome, and although Goodwin’s style is accessible and lively, The Bully Pulpit does not make for quick reading. More than 125 pages into the book, Roosevelt and Taft have yet to meet. It's even later before S. S. McClure, the crusading magazine publisher who figures prominently in Goodwin’s story, makes an appearance.

The early sections provide a heavy dose of biographical information about the youth and early adulthood of the two future presidents. Their parents, wives and in-laws get a going-over as well. The political wrangling in these sections is sometimes obscure. This delays the synthesis of forces that are at the heart of Goodwin’s account.

Goodwin draws a fine, even humorous, comparison between Roosevelt and Taft who, despite their early friendship, were opposites in many ways. Roosevelt was a dynamo; critics called him erratic. Taft was deliberative and judicial. Not only was Roosevelt a good deal shorter (and lighter) than the hefty Taft, but Roosevelt was an aggressive whirlwind who did not suffer fools gladly. Amiable, self-spoken and cherubic, Taft was a gifted lawyer but a dry, long-winded speaker plagued by insecurities and procrastination. Still, Taft said their “common views and sympathies” brought the two men together.

Even before Roosevelt and Taft ascended to the presidency, it was clear that Taft lacked Roosevelt’s knack for meeting with critics or cultivating the support of powerful editors and writers. Roosevelt did just that during his contentious stint as a reform-minded police commissioner in New York City in the 1890s, as governor of New York and even as president. Taft, a U.S. Circuit Court judge before he joined Roosevelt’s White House team, issued progressive rulings from the bench and later displayed strong administrative skills in the American-run Philippines. But as president, he made no concerted effort to nurture journalistic relationships. And he failed to develop a forceful speaking style.

The Bully Pulpit becomes especially compelling when Goodwin finally tosses McClure and his journalists into the mix. A self-made man who overcame poverty to establish what Goodwin calls “the most exciting and influential magazine the country had ever seen.” McClure was a publishing sage who employed the nation’s best investigative reporters. His supercharged persona swung between periods of manic brilliance and bouts of depression and exhaustion that were so severe he spent months on end recuperating.

Roosevelt and McClure’s team had a remarkably symbiotic relationship. As president, Roosevelt often tapped his friendship with progressive journalists to garner first-hand information that helped him craft and pursue his reform-minded agenda. The journalists, in turn, sometimes sought Roosevelt’s feedback on pending articles, or turned to him for tips, leads, and ready access to key federal officials.

Goodwin’s weaving of multiple strands into one narrative is both the strength and the weakness of The Bully Pulpit. The book introduces us to myriad characters from various backgrounds, all of them fascinating. Each of Goodwin’s three story lines is enticing, but they do not always mesh seamlessly, creating a disjointed whole because the linkages seem forced at times.

A joint biography of Roosevelt and Taft, or an examination of Roosevelt and the muckrakers, might have flowed smoothly. In fact, Goodwin is at her best with her deeply moving look at the gradual collapse of the Roosevelt-Taft friendship, their bruising 1912 battle for the presidency, and their eventual reconciliation. But with its triple focus, The Bully Pulpit has one strand too many.