by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
It did not take long after the publication of Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin that the book received rave reviews. In particular, President Barack Obama stated that it was “A remarkable study in leadership.” Some pundits speculated that the choices of Joe Biden as Vice President and Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State, both Obama’s rivals in the 2008 Democratic Party Nomination, had been influenced by Lincoln’s appointing political rivals in his cabinet. The book has been on my reading list for many years. However, its length, 754 pages of text and 120 pages of notes in tiny print, had been a deterrent. Recently, I became aware of the praise of Lincoln by Leo Tolstoy, the essence of which appeared on the page before the list of Contents: “The greatness of Napoleon, Caesar or Washington is only moonlight by the sun of Lincoln. His example is universal and will last thousands of years….” I wonder what caused Tolstoy to make such an unreserved and extraordinary praise of Lincoln, and resolve to make an attempt to find the answer by reading through Ms. Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. The main rivals were William Seward, Salmon Chase, Edward Bates, and Edwin Stanton. Seward, Chase and Bates and Lincoln were all competitors for the 1860 Republican Nomination for President. Seward was a US Senator representing New York and had served as Governor of New York, Chase was a Governor of Ohio and before that, a US Senator. Bates was a US House of Representative from Missouri. Stanton, while not vying to be the nominee, was a prominent lawyer and served as Attorney General under President Buchanan. While all had more experience and were better known than Lincoln, this reader, probably many others as well, was unaware of their existence until he read the book, which gave detailed accounts of their background, family members, their contributions to the Lincoln administration, and, most interesting of all, their first impressions of Lincoln and how their opinions changed over time. True to the subtitle “The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”, the book took the reader through Lincoln’s congressional and senate races, the Republican Nomination and Election to the Presidency in 1860, the formation of the cabinet, in which he selected his former rivals for the key positions (Secretary of State: Seward; Secretary of Treasury: Chase; Attorney General: Bates; Secretary of War: Stanton). The author then gave detailed accounts of the infighting and contentions among the cabinet members, including criticism of Lincoln himself by cabinet members; the impertinence, inaction, and incompetence of a Union General at the early stage of the Civil War; military defeats and the final victory. Alongside the historical accounts were the leadership skills displayed in Lincoln’s management of these situations. Besides the elements common to most leaders, Lincoln possessed several rare and distinct leadership qualities: - Singular ability to transcend personal vendetta - Accurate understanding of the public sentiment on an issue and the ability to wait for the proper timing in making a public policy pronouncement - Ability to tell amusing but relevant stories to make a point. While Lincoln had an inexhaustible reservoir of stories, not all the stories were told in the King’s English, as the reader can find out in the one entitled “A revolutionary relic” and the one entitled “George Washington’s Water Closet.” In addition to be a place to learn leadership and history, the book is also filled with real human drama. Even though the events were historic, the account reads like a fictional page turner, with frequent twists and turns, finally leading to the tragic end that every reader is aware of. It is ironic that, when Lincoln died on April 15, 1865, the immortal words “Now that he belongs to the ages”, were uttered by Edwin Stanton, the person who was derogatory of Lincoln and likened him to a “long armed Ape” when the two first met in Cincinnati in 1855. Finally, the author is to be complimented to end the book with another quote by Leo Tolstoy: “Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world…..We are still too near to his greatness, but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do.”
Abraham Lincoln Portrait in National Gallery, Washington, D. C.
Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.
Link of review in amazon.com.
5th among 3545 reviews
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