Lincoln’s ‘Team of Rivals’ vs. Trump’s Team of Revengers
To preserve a nation, Lincoln chose his biggest haters as his advisors. It’s a forgotten lesson in statecraft.
Abraham Lincoln stood in the dim, smoky light of the White House in early 1861 with a daunting task — who to choose for his cabinet. Outside, winter winds whipped through the capital, and the scent of woodsmoke seeped under doors and into every corner. His new nation was splintering, and the White House, drafty and dilapidated, echoed with whispers of secession and revolt.
Lincoln stared down at a list of names. Many of those names were men who had once openly ridiculed him, called him unfit, a “prairie lawyer” with no business in Washington.
He now had the power to take revenge on all his haters.
Enemy #1 was William Seward. In 1850, Seward ran against Lincoln for the Republican presidential nominee and lost. During his campaign, he had openly scoffed at Lincoln as little more than a backwoods storyteller. Yet Lincoln knew Seward’s razor-sharp mind was precisely what his administration needed. Lincoln appointed him as his Secretary of State.
