Group of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Winner of the Lincoln Prize

Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln’s political genius on this extremely authentic work, because the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of nationwide repute to grow to be president.

On Might 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited of their hometowns for the outcomes from the Republican Nationwide Conference in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged because the victor, his rivals had been dismayed and offended.

All through the turbulent 1850s, every had energetically sought the presidency because the battle over slavery was main inexorably to secession and civil warfare. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the results of a personality that had been solid by experiences that raised him above his extra privileged and achieved rivals. He gained as a result of he possessed a unprecedented capability to place himself within the place of different males, to expertise what they had been feeling, to grasp their motives and needs.

It was this capability that enabled Lincoln as president to carry his disgruntled opponents collectively, create essentially the most uncommon cupboard in historical past, and marshal their skills to the duty of preserving the Union and profitable the warfare.

We view the lengthy, horrifying battle from the vantage of the White Home as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cupboard. He overcomes these obstacles by profitable the respect of his former opponents, and within the case of Seward, finds a loyal and essential buddy to see him by means of.

This good a number of biography is centered on Lincoln’s mastery of males and the way it formed essentially the most important presidency within the nation’s historical past.