geekyIn the movie the Godfather II, the character Michael Corleone famously said "keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer." I don't believe that was Lincoln's intent when three of his rivals for the 1860 Republican Party Presidential Nomination ended up in his cabinet. It is more likely that Lincoln knew that he was entering a volatile political situation, and a united party would be one of his strongest assets in confronting his coming challenges. History does not reflect Lincoln as being vindictive or vengeful against political adversaries. There are many examples of civility in Lincoln's conduct and his cabinet selection is one example of this.
Lincoln was a former one-term Whig Congressman. Despite his narrow loss to Democrat Stephen A. Douglas in the 1858 Senate election in Illinois, he was seen as a major Republican presidential candidate in the upcoming election. Many believed that the front-runner for the nomination was Republican Senator William H. Seward of New York, who had broad support within the party. But Lincoln had spent much of 1859 and 1860 building support for his candidacy. A speech he gave in New York City in 1859, known as his "Cooper Union speech" was well-received by eastern party elites, transforming his image from that of a country bumpkin into someone who was presidential. Lincoln positioned himself in the "moderate center" of his party. He was opposed to the expansion of slavery into the territories. But he was not an abolitionist and did not call for the abolition of slavery in slave states.
The 1860 Republican National Convention was held in Chicago, a city Lincoln in Lincoln's home state. On the first ballot, Lincoln finished second to Seward. In those days candidates did not usually attend the convention, and Lincoln remained home in Springfield. He told his convention managers that the should "make no contracts that bind me". They ignored this direction and maneuvered to win Lincoln's nomination on the third ballot. Other candidates included Senator Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Governor Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Representative Edward Bates of Missouri.
The 1860 Democratic National Convention had met the previous month in April 1860, but adjourned after failing to agree on a candidate. A second convention met in June and nominated Stephen Douglas as the presidential nominee. At that convention several pro-slavery Southern delegations refused to support Douglas. They insisted on a pro-slavery nominee. These Southern Democrats held a separate convention that nominated incumbent Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for president. In a bid to head off secession, a group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell for president. This group hoped that the election could be decided by the House of Representatives and that the Union could be preserved in that manner by selecting Bell as a compromise between the two extremes. Breckinridge and Bell would fight for votes in the South, while Lincoln and Douglas would compete for votes in the North.
The election was not decided by the House. Lincoln carried all but one Northern state to win an Electoral College majority with 180 votes. Breckinridge received 72, Bell won 39 and Douglas won 12. Lincoln won 39.8% of the popular vote, while Douglas won 29.5% of the popular vote, Breckenridge won 18.1%, and Bell won 12.6%. 82.2 percent of eligible voters took part in the contentious election, the second highest turnout in U.S. history. Despite Republican success in the presidential election, the party failed to win a majority in either house of Congress.
Following Lincoln's victory, all the slave states began to consider secession. Lincoln was not scheduled to take office until March 1861, leaving incumbent Democratic President James Buchanan continuing as a lame-duck president. Buchanan was a "doughface" (a northerner who supported the southerners on the issue of slavery). Buchanan meekly declared that secession was illegal, but said that the government had no power to resist it. Lincoln had no official power to act while the secession crisis escalated. He chose a policy of silence, knowing that anything he said would alienate one of the two factions. He clung to the belief that if there were no overt acts or threats against the South, Southern unionists would keep their states in the Union.
In December 1860, both the House and Senate formed special committees to address the looming crisis. Lincoln communicated with various Congressmen to discuss potential compromises, but he was clear that he was unalterably opposed to anything which would allow the expansion of slavery into any new states or territories. On December 6, Lincoln wrote to Congressman William Kellogg of Illinois that he should: "entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the extension of slavery. The instant you do, they have us under again; all our labor is lost, and sooner or later must be done over. Douglas is sure to be again trying to bring in his [popular sovereignty]. Have none of it. The tug has to come & better now than later."
In mid-December, Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, the chairman of the Senate committee, proposed a package of six constitutional amendments, known as the Crittenden Compromise. The compromise would protect slavery in federal territories south of the 36°30′ parallel and prohibit it in territories north of that latitude, with newly admitted states deciding on the status of slavery within their borders. Congress would be forbidden from abolishing slavery in any state (or the District of Columbia) or interfering with the domestic slave trade. Seward and Thurlow Weed of New York tried to pressure Lincoln into supporting the compromise, but Lincoln continued to oppose the expansion of slavery into the territories. Lincoln privately asked Republican Senators to oppose the compromise, and it failed to pass in Congress. He still hoped that Southern threats of secession was mostly bluster. But Southerners saw Lincoln's presidency as a threat which would lead to the restriction of slavery in the territories would ultimately to the extinction of slavery altogether.
On December 20, 1860, South Carolina voted to secede, and six other Southern states seceded in the next forty days. In February, these Southern states formed the Confederated States of America (CSA) and elected Jefferson Davis as provisional president. Despite the formation of the CSA, the slave-holding states of Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri still remained part of the union. Voters in Virginia rejected secession in February, while North Carolina voters also rejected a convention designed to lead to secession.
In February 1861, two final political efforts were made to preserve the Union. The first was made by a group of 131 delegates sent by 21 states to a Peace Conference, held at the Willard's Hotel in the nation's capital. Chaired by former President John Tyler, the convention submitted to Congress a seven-point constitutional amendment proposal similar in content to the earlier Crittenden Compromise. The proposal was rejected by the Senate and never considered by the House.
On February 11, 1861, Lincoln boarded a special train that over the course of the next two weeks would take him to the nation's capital. Lincoln spoke several times each day during the train trip. His message was consistent: (1) He had no hostile intentions towards the South; (2) Secession was unacceptable; (3) Unlike Buchanan, he intended to enforce the laws and protect property.
Rumors abounded during the course of the trip of various plots to kill Lincoln. Samuel Felton, president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, hired detective Allan Pinkerton to investigate reports that secessionists might try to sabotage the railroad along the route. In conducting his investigation Pinkerton obtained information that an attempt on Lincoln's life would be made in Baltimore. As a result of the threat, the travel schedule was altered, tracks were closed to other traffic, and the telegraph wires were cut to heighten security. Lincoln, dressed in an overcoat, muffler, and soft wool hat, and his entourage passed through Baltimore's waterfront at around 3 o'clock in the early morning of February 23, and arrived safely in the nation's capital a few hours later. This led to critics and cartoonists accusing Lincoln of sneaking into Washington in disguise.
When he arrived in the city, Lincoln met with Buchanan and Congressional leaders and began work to complete his cabinet, meeting with Republican Senators to obtain their feedback. On inauguration day, Lincoln knew that what he said would be carefully scrutinized. He sought advice from colleagues and friends on his speech. Illinois Senator Orville Browning advised Lincoln to omit the phrase "to reclaim the public property and places which have fallen". He also asked William Seward to review the speech and Seward produced a six-page analysis of the speech in which he offered 49 suggested changes, of which Lincoln ended up using 27.
Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861 on the East Portico of the United States Capitol. In his inaugural address, he opened by attempting to assure the South that he had no intention to interfere with slavery in states where it already existed. He promised to enforce the fugitive slave laws and spoke favorably about a pending constitutional amendment that would preserve slavery in the states where it currently existed. He also assured the states that had already succeeded that the federal government would not "assail" them. But he went on to call secession "the essence of anarchy" and it was his duty to "hold, occupy, and possess the property belonging to the government". In his closing remarks Lincoln spoke directly to the secessionists, and asserted that no state could secede from the Union "upon its own mere motion". He concluded by saying:
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Lincoln had began picking his cabinet on election night. He attempted to reach out to every faction of his party with a special emphasis on balancing anti-slavery former Whigs with former free-soil Democrats. He wanted to keep the Republican Party united. He included all of his main rivals for the Republican nomination and was not afraid of including strong-minded men. Though the Cabinet members differed on a number of other issues, all were opposed the extension of slavery into the territories.
For the leading cabinet position of Secretary of State, William Seward was selected because of his prominent status in the party. In mid-December 1860, Vice President-elect Hamlin, at Lincoln's behest, offered the position to Seward, who had been deeply disappointed by his failure to win the 1860 Republican presidential nomination. Seward had emerged as the dominant figure in Lincoln's cabinet, even though his conservative policies on abolition alienated many within the Republican Party.
Lincoln's choice for Secretary of the Treasury was Ohio Senator Salmon P. Chase, who had been Seward's chief political rival in the Republican Party. Chase was the leader of the more radical faction of Republicans that wanted to abolish slavery as quickly as possible. Seward was opposed the selection of Chase and Chase came to resent Seward's influence in the cabinet. Chase surreptitiously sought the 1864 Republican nomination, and he frequently worked to undermine Lincoln's re-election, but Lincoln kept Chase in the cabinet because of Chase's competence and because of his popularity among Radical Republicans. In 1864 Chase offered his resignation in June 1864 due to a dispute over an appointment. Lincoln, having just been renominated for president, accepted Chase's resignation. Lincoln replaced Chase with William P. Fessenden, a Radical Republican who had served as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Chase became Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
The most problematic selection for Lincoln was that of Simon Cameron as the Secretary of War. Cameron was one of the most influential public leaders in the politically important state of Pennsylvania, but he was also one of the most corrupt. He was opposed within his own state by the faction led by Republican Governor-elect Andrew G. Curtin and Republican party chairman A. K. McClure, who sent a long letter to Lincoln protesting his consideration of Cameron. Despite this, Lincoln realized that it was important to have a Pennsylvanian in his cabinet. Cameron was chosen to be Secretary of War. But as the war progressed, it became clear to Lincoln that Cameron was not capable of handling the War Department, Lincoln tactfully removed Cameron in January 1862 by appointing him as the ambassador to Russia. Cameron was replaced by Edwin Stanton, a staunchly Unionist pro-business conservative Democrat. Stanton worked more often and more closely with Lincoln than any other senior official during the war.
Lincoln picked two individuals from the border states to his cabinet. Montgomery Blair of Maryland, who was popular among anti-slavery and border state Democrats, became Lincoln's first Postmaster-General. Blair came from a prominent political family. His father, Francis Preston Blair, had served as an adviser to President Andrew Jackson, while his younger brother, Francis Preston Blair Jr., was a major Unionist leader in Missouri. As the war progressed, the Blair family alienated many key Northern and border state leaders and Blair became a political liability. Lincoln dismissed Blair from the cabinet in September 1864, replacing him with William Dennison.
The other border state cabinet member was Attorney General Edward Bates, who was from Missouri and who had been a candidate for the 1860 Republican Party Presidential nomination. Bates resigned in 1864 after several disagreements with Lincoln, culminating in his resentment at not being nominated to the Supreme Court. He was replaced by James Speed, the older brother of Lincoln's close friend, Joshua Fry Speed.
Lincoln asked Vice President-elect Hamlin to find someone from a New England state for the cabinet. Hamlin recommended Gideon Welles of Connecticut, a former Democrat who had served in the Navy Department under President James K. Polk. Wells became Secretary of the Navy, and was a prolific diarist, keeping a good record of many of the wartime discussions. Caleb Blood Smith of Indiana was a former Whig representing the same type of midwestern constituency as Lincoln. Lincoln's friend and adviser David Davis recommended Smith. Smith was chosen as Secretary of the Interior. He would serve less than two years before resigning due to poor health. He was replaced by John Palmer Usher.
Lincoln and his team of rivals worked to manage the war and to bring about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Lincoln's assassination in April of 1865 robbed the nation of the opportunity to see how they would have managed the reconstruction of post-bellum America and what lasting impacts their effective collaboration might have left on the future of the nation.