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Article: A man in it: President Lincoln filled his cabinet with political opponents, but through force of personality shaped them for the tasks ahead.(Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- American Scholar
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Phi Beta Kappa Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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TEAM OF RIVALS: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln By Doris Kearns Goodwin Simon & Schuster $35
One of the better old books on Lincoln, from 1946, was Lincoln's War Cabinet, by Burton J. Hendrick. That volume praised the way Lincoln corralled a team of people reluctant to work with him and with each other, kept them in harness--alternately cajoling, yielding, coercing--and made them a single tool of government in a scattered time. Lincoln's first masterstroke was deftly to quash an attempt of the favored candidate in the 1860 election, William Henry Seward, to effect a silent coup before the inauguration. Seward's Karl Rove, Thurlow Weed, went to Springfield ...