Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Chase believes that he has gathered a committee of supporters that will help propel him to defeat Lincoln in 1864 and achieve his lifelong ambition to become President of the United States, but once again, he fails to secure his home state of Ohio (608). His support quickly vanishes, and it becomes clear that Lincoln is the logical choice to carry the Republican nomination going forward. Kearns Goodwin writes: “Lincoln’s ability to retain his emotional balance in such difficult situations was rooted in an acute self-awareness and an enormous capacity to dispel anxiety in constructive ways” (609).

Meanwhile, Grant continues to achieve victories, and he takes command of the Union forces on March 8, 1864. He “pushed relentlessly south to Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor […] engaging Lee in a hideous struggle” (619). The Union victory at Cold Harbor leaves Lee with a severe lack of manpower, as it is becoming impossible for him to refill his ranks with men as quickly as he is losing them.

Lincoln officially receives the Republican nomination in Baltimore, but his Vice President will now be Andrew Johnson, a man from Tennessee. The political thinking idea is to show some accommodation to the South, but this decision will have consequences for the Union when Johnson is forced to take office following Lincoln’s assassination.  

Many had thought that Grant’s victories at Cold Harbor and the Wilderness would a swift end to the war, but “Union hopes for imminent victory faded as the spring of 1864 gave way to summer” (627).

The relationship between Chase and Lincoln sours, and Lincoln finally accepts Chase’s offer to resign as Secretary of the Treasury. Lincoln will eventually appoint Chase to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Taney, but in the interim, Chase’s political future is in doubt, and he suffers the extreme embarrassment of having been outmatched by Lincoln’s calm, collected reasoning.

Lincoln invites Frederick Douglass to the White House in order to discuss the issue of slavery; he fears that if there is a peace, the Emancipation Proclamation will no longer be the law of the land as he has no way to enforce it in the southern states. Lincoln begins planning for a way to make people see how central slavery has become to the war.

Having won the Republican nomination, Lincoln faces face George McClellan in the 1864 election, and he wins in a landslide. He is propelled to victory by the soldier vote and by the military successes of the Union Army, which captures Atlanta and continues to devastate its way through Georgia. 

Having won the election, Lincoln sets about building a new cabinet. Chase, Blair, Stanton and Bates depart for various reasons, though Chase will continue to serve at a high level in government as a Supreme Court Justice, where he proves himself to be able and skilled in the job. Lincoln’s Vice President, Andrew Johnson, embarrasses himself mightily during his first speaking engagement, such that some believe him “either drunk or crazy” (698).

Lincoln now goes about securing the passage of the 13th Amendment which will forever outlaws slavery in the United States. “Nothing on the home front […] engaged Lincoln with greater urgency,” writes Kearns Goodwin (686). Although many did not want to see the amendment pass, Lincoln managed to secure all of the votes necessarily to make sure that states that returned to the Union would not be able to continue the practice of slavery.

At his second inaugural address, Lincoln makes an overture at reconciliation with the South. He does not want to be seen as a domineering conqueror, rather a benevolent benefactor, ready to assist the South in all ways—should they only ask. 

After more than four years of fighting, Richmond falls to the Union Army, and the war ends. Grant accepts Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, and Lincoln prepares for his new role as a leader of a peacetime nation. Tragically, this is not to be, as John Wilkes Booth concocts a plot in which he and a band of men will assassinate Lincoln, Andrew Johnson and William Seward. In the attacks, Seward is gravely injured, but he manages to recover. The assailant targeting Johnson does not execute his part in the plan. Booth shoots Lincoln in the back of the head while the President watching a play at Ford’s Theatre. Lincoln dies in the early morning hours of April 14, and the nation is momentarily leaderless.

While some on the South celebrate Lincoln’s death, others believe his assassination is the worst thing that could befall them. Now, whatever good will might have been engendered between North and South has been destroyed. Without Lincoln’s leadership, the process of Reconstruction becomes chaotic. Johnson is not up to the task, and he harbors too many Southern sympathies to truly be seen as effective by many in the North. He is eventually impeached, though not removed from office, and is later defeated by Ulysses S. Grant. The nation will face a bloody era where the South continues to bear the scars of the fallout from the Civil War.

Of all the men who had entered the epoch with stature, Lincoln emerges as the greatest of them all. Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, far removed from the land Lincoln governed stated, “We are still too near to his greatness […] but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us” (748).