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.
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.
