Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin ~ Book Club Online

[PatH]

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Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

"More books about Abraham Lincoln line the shelves of libraries than about any other American. Can there be anything new to say about our 16th president? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. - ..... Doris Kearns Goodwin has written an elegant, incisive study of Lincoln......." - New York Times The Team: William H. Seward Salmon P. Chase Edward Bates .........      Links: NPR Review Wilmot Proviso Dred Scott Decision Kansas-Nebraska Act Fugitive Slave Law

March 15 -Chapters 8-11 March 22 - Chapters 12-15

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March 29 - Chapters 16-19 April 5 -      Chapters 20-23 April 12 -    Chapters 24 -26

To Consider in Chapters 8-11 1.  Why Chicago for the Republican convention of 1860?  2.  The Republicans gathered  to nominate their candidate  for the presidency of the United States.    What actions did Lincoln take to win the nomination?  Was it his leadership, publicity, friends, managers, committees, what plans were used? 3.  Do you see indications that Obama used some of the same strategies that Lincoln used for the nomination?  4. Consider the reaction of the Southern politicians.  Why did the Democratic Convention in Charleston, S. Carolina end in chaos?  5.  What effect did the Democrats’ nomination of Douglas have upon the eventual election of the president, if any? 6.  Newspapers played a major role in the opinion of the people and the election of politicians in the 18th and 19th centuries and beyond.   Do newspapers, or the printed word, have any future today? 7.  Seven states unanimously decided to secede from the union upon Lincoln’s election.  Consider their grievances against the Union and consider why the North was taken by surprise!. 8.What was Lincoln’s own view of a slave?  Had he had any personal experience with slavery? 9. Was there any possible way that the war could have been avoided in your opinion?    Discussion Leaders: Ella & PatH

[PatH]

On page 125, Lincoln makes reference to Haman.  I find that remark very interesting.  It attests to Lincoln’s voracious reading and his extensive knowledge of the Old Testament, for the name Haman is not that well known outside of Jewish history.

I'll bet that this is an example of the good side of the scarcity of books when Lincoln was growing up.  When you have very few books, you read them over and over, and milk them for all they are worth--get a totally deeper understanding of them.  Though he didn't have a lot of books, Lincoln had some very good ones, of course including the Bible, and he made the most of them.

[JoanK]

Interesting points, Lucky. Jews celebrate the story of Haman on Purin, when they eat cookies called "Hamen's ears".

The story of having to keep quiet about your beliefs is an old one. In 37, the Congress worked by a strict seniority system. The positions of power went to those who had been Senators or Congressmen the longest. Since the South always voted Democratic, Southern Congressmen held the same position forever, and moved into positions of power. This kept the Congress incredibly slow on issues of racial justice or equality.

States Rights: the devision of power between the states and the Federal government has been an issue of contention since the revolution. Just after the revolution, Americans thought of themselves as citezens of their states, and were slow to cede any power to the Federal Government. Eighty years later, I'm sure many people still felt very strongly about this. Many Southern slaveholders of course didn't want to lose their slaves, but also didn't think a bunch of people from other states should be able to tell them what to do.

To a Northerner, since states right have been raised first to defend slavery and later to oppose Civil Rights legislation, it has come to be thought of mainly as a support for racial inequality. But of course, it is much wider than that. We still have state laws controlling marraige, divorce, and many other things. The state of California has stronger pollution laws than other, but the pollution drifts from state to state. Some states recognize gay marraige, some don't etc.

What do you think of all this?

[lucky]

Hi Joan,

You bring up a good point.  The Constitution is the supreme law of the United States yet states, like recalcitrant children have been stubborn when it comes to obeying it.  Today, the most egregious example is the controversy over abortion.  Abortion is legal according to the Constitution yet many states have made it so difficult for women to avail themselves of it that its is almost illegal.  A case in point was the referendum held by South Dakota to outlaw it.  It failed, but even if it had passed, eventually the Supreme Curt would have ruled against it.  The state of Massachusetts refused to allow the sale of birth control pills.  Women had to have their prescription filled in Conn.  The Supreme Court eventually ruled against this.  I sometimes think we have too much government.

[Jonathan]

The more I read, both the posts and the book, the more perplexing it gets. The Civil War with its causes and its consequences, seen both as nation-building and nation destroying. What a curse slavery turned out to be. What  bones of contention lie hidden in the Constitution. Sure, it's the supreme law of the land. But then it falls into the hands of someone like CJ Taney and the dreadful Dred Scott decision is made part of the march to war.

Was the Civil War inevitable? Only for those who wanted it. Lincoln did not. He wasn't a crusader like Seward and Chase. Lincoln did not set out to be the Great Emancipator. His hero was Henry Clay, the Great Pacificator. Of course Lincoln was aware of the slavery issue, but his main course of action seems to have been to find the answers in the constitution. Well, perhaps with a little Old Testament guidance thrown in.

Seward, on the other hand, talked about the 'higher law', and the irrepressible conflict'. We're given to believe that this lost him support in his race for the nomination. Being an out and out abolitionist lost him as many votes as it got him. Who can blame him? After all he and his wife Frances had witnessed the cruelties of slavery at first hand in their journey through Virginia. I've forgotten the page.

I've fallen a little behind in my reading because of several distractions, but I'm following the discussion with much interest. I wonder how much 'Galt' jewellery is being torn apart, like fortune cookies, on the expectation of finding the musings of a repairman. Is it true that no photograph exists which has both Mary and Abraham Lincoln on it? Surely there must be one out there.

[PatH]

I must admit that my attitude toward state's rights varies a bit according to the issue.  I'm very indignant when South Dakota tries to outlaw abortion, but I'm secretly sympathetic when California tries to put on pressure with stronger antipollution laws.

"What  bones of contention lie hidden in the Constitution."  Right, Jonathan, but I'm surprised at how sturdy the Constitution has proven to be.  It still works pretty well in a time when all the issues and the way the world works are very different from when it was written.  Politics is always a tug of war.

[mabel1015j]

March is Women's History Month.

Just last night i had a wonderful experience in women's history. Women's Way in Philadelphia, which is a "United Way" for women's agencies and issues, gives an award each year to the author of a book which advances the dialogue about women's rights. It's given in the name of Ernesta Drinker Ballard who was the first president of Women's Way. W'sW was started in the 70's when the United Way of Phila was giving very little money to women's agencies and projects. Ballard was a dynamo for women in PHila, in many areas of life. Of course, both the Drinker and the Ballard name is historic in Phila.

The winner of the award last night was Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the author of sev'l books about colonial women, but is most famous for putting a phrase in a journal article in the 1970's about colonial women's funerals that said "well-behaved women seldom make history!" That phrase has been picked up and used on every surface - t-shirts, mugs, pens, banners, etc. etc. and is the title of her latest book.  This book focuses on Christine de Pisan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Virginia Woolf, but goes on to chapters entitled "Shakespeare's Daughters," the Amazons," Slaves in the Attic," and others. She is really talking about all of us ordinary women who "make" history w/out ever having our names in history books. Gerda Learner has said everyone is making history. Do you think she's right?

We've talked about how many books have been written about Lincoln and many of them mention the effects that the women in his life  had on him.
Those women would probably have never come to our attention except for their link to AL, and yet, they are symbols of millions of women's lives and they all had an impact on their time and place, and where we are in history now. Which brings me back to Ella's question about the similarities btwn Pres Obama and AL. Women seemed to have had a strong influence in Obama's life. I will be curious to see if there are any comments ABOUT women from Lincoln in DKG's book. What was his attitude toward them.........................jean

[Ella Gibbons]

Hello, JOAN, you made a very astute comment in Post #81 about southern congressmen and also about states rights.   Would you agree that as far as senators go we see the same old system, the same senators from the same states?  Obviously they are bringing in money for their constituents, loads of earmarks.   I watch the news and see some faces that I’m sure have been there for 30 some years or more.  One recent example is Ted Kennedy even if he is well regarded. I remember him as a very young man on that bridge.

The states believed that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution gave them the right to secede, the right to go to war, the right to be independent.  See:

http://thomaslegion.net/secessionofsouthernstatesandtheamericancivilwar.html

So, their state House of Representative and their Senate vote on it?  I wonder if there were many dissenting votes, anyone know?

That article says that even today the subject of Secession is a very heated one.  I would love to hear that debate. 

As is states rights on other subjects that LUCKY AND PAT both remarked about.

But as I want about my work today, I thought about the many  “ifs” connected to this war and as I was on the Web I looked up Robert E. Lee.  Perhaps if he taken command of the Union Army as Lincoln requested, things might have been different? 

So many interesting comments all of you have made.  Come more often, JONATHAN, don’t get distracted, spend a pleasant hour with the book and us.  We appreciate your comments, so well thought out.

How interesting, JEAN, I have never heard of Women’s Way, but we can use all the help we get.  I’m not sure that this book is a good example of Lincoln’s attitude toward women, what do the rest of you think?  He was such a political animal (as Obama seems to be), but he loved his children dearly and spent time with them.  Mary seemed to me to be a “plague” (for lack of a better word) as far as Lincoln was concerned, but perhaps I am wrong.

We read (pgs.124-5) from letters he wrote to Mary.  He mentions her headaches, her hindrance of his business,  her problems with other folks, but Goodwin states that the letters were also full of expressions of longing, both for her company and perhaps, intimacy.

Michelle Obama, living in a period of history where women of her education and prominence, can just about choose what she wishes to do.  She could probably have a great impact on anything she wishes to engage in; I think she has mentioned working with people in the District to better their lives. 

I am thinking -- thinking -- of other presidents' wives; one stands out, Ladybird Johnson, and her beautification program for the country.  It was a great improvement I thought and it was successful.  Do you know that our downtown Columbus, Ohio does not allow billboards anywhere, in fact we see very few billboards anywhere.  Do you?

What do you think?

[PatH]

I will be curious to see if there are any comments ABOUT women from Lincoln in DKG's book. What was his attitude toward them.........................jean

Lincoln seems to have been attracted to educated, intelligent women, which suggests he wanted them to be his equals, but Goodwin says little or nothing about his attitude.

Seward and Chase were also attracted to intelligent women; no mention is made of Bates' attitude.

[PatH]

Goodwin only has a few sentences about the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, so I’ll say a little about it.  It was passed by the Congress of the Confederation of the United States, and dealt with setting up the organization of the Northwest Territory (now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a bit of Minnesota) and the admission of the territory into the  Union as a number of new states.  The important part for our story is that it forbade slavery in the territory.

This was the foundation of the antislavery argument against the expansion of slavery, that the founding fathers recognized their inability to do away with slavery as it already existed, but had no intention of letting it spread.

"To many opponents of slavery in later years, including Abraham Lincoln, the Ordinance of 1787 became…a sacred document expressing the intent of the founding fathers to confine slavery within the boundaries of the existing states, Prohibiting forever its future spread."  Goodwin, p 110.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance

This argument was at the heart of Lincoln’s Cooper Union Speech.

[JoanK]

Yes, dealing with the question of whether, if slavery was kept from expanding, it would have died away?

In addition to reasons mentioned above, there is the relationship between slavery and mechanization. The accepted wisdom is that one couldn't use slaves to operate expensive machinery, because it would be too easy for them to sabotage them. They were economically important then for picking cotton and tobacco. but I'll bet the planters did just as well with the system of sharecropping that evolved after the Civil War.

[mabel1015j]

I don't know if i'm ahead or behind the book, so let me just make some comments relating to the convention. If i'm ahead of you, i'll repeat these later:

I was astonished that 40,000 people came to the convention. Railroads had expanded across the country and i'm sure that is why so many were able to come. And, as was typical at the time, women were relegated to the side galleries, ironically, making men find a woman to accompany HIM to get a seat in the galleries. 10,000 people were in the convention hall. My question has always been when i read about big crowds and speech-makers before there was electricity - how do they hear what is going on on the stage, or from the floor?

It's been a while since "German-Americans" were considered as a voting block. That bought a smile to my face, remembering Ben Franklin's comment at one time that G-A'ns were a brutish, discourteous group. I'm not sure of the exact quote, but that was the essence of it.

There is a wonderful "what if..........." historical moment - if there was no Horace Greeley who held a grudge about Seward, there may have been no Pres Lincoln. It was frustrating for me that Goodwin doesn't tell us what  "political slights" had ticked off Greeley............is there a footnote in the book that tells us? ......................
I think i must still be in the first chapters on the dvd, or maybe the dvd is abridged, altho it doesn't say so.............Richard Thomas - yes, "johnboy," is the reader on the dvd and he's quite good...................easy to listen to.............................jean

[mabel1015j]

BF's comments about German-American's........does this sound familiar? Pat Buchanan could very easily have put his name on this. 

Franklin warned that Germans were too stupid to learn English, and therefore represented a political threat to America:

"Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation…and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain…Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it…...In short unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this (Penna) to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious."

The other objection that Ben Franklin had to German immigrants was their "swarthy complexion", which was an affront to the "purely white people" who originally settled America:

"Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the   English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as   to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our   Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion". 

The more things change, the more they stay the same!?! ................

In the discussion about the convention debate, DKG speaks of the "bluff W.E.B. DuBois" - that is not THE W.E.B.BuBois, writer, sociologist, founder of NAACP, he was not born yet. His father was a white man from NY whose name was James, so it may have been another man of his family.........................does DKG footnote that, or comment about it? If she doesn't, i'm surprised that she leaves many w/ the impression that it was the later DuBois...............................jean

[PatH]

There is a wonderful "what if..........." historical moment - if there was no Horace Greeley who held a grudge about Seward, there may have been no Pres Lincoln. It was frustrating for me that Goodwin doesn't tell us what  "political slights" had ticked off Greeley............is there a footnote in the book that tells us? ......................

Goodwin does tell us what ticked off Greeley.  Over the years, Greeley had been extremely useful to Seward and Weed through his newspaper, but Greeley also had a hankering for the prestige and money of political office.  At various times he had hinted this to Seward and Weed, but wasn't taken seriously (S and W felt he was more useful through his writing).  Finally, Greeley repeatedly asked to be the candidate for Governor.  Weed not only didn't support this, but gave the nomination for lieutenant governor to the editor of the New York Times, archrival of Greeley's N. Y. tribune.  S and W didn't take Greeley's extremely angry letter seriously enough, even when G began to support Bates.  (See pp 214-16.)

This is one of several mistakes of judgement or overconfidence made by Seward.  Another was his lengthy trip abroad when he should have been mending fences, and another was Weed's failure to meet with Pennsylvania's Boss Cameron when C. suggested it, leading to their not knowing what Cameron could or couldn't do.

This week's section stops just before the trains start rolling into Chicago.

[PatH]

So the "swarthy, stupid" Germans wouldn't be able to adapt to democracy, but in 1900 they were joining the original English stock to try to keep out my father's parents ("swarthy, stupid" Italians) and it still continues.  That's one of the issues common to Lincoln's time and Obama's.

[mabel1015j]

thank you Pat, apparently the dvd IS an abridged version of the book, so i'll just pay attention to everyone's comments here and use the dvd as supplemental............jean

[PatH]

I had a bad experience with an abridged book as a child which put me off them forever.  I had gotten "Les Miserables" (in English of course) out of the library, started reading it on a Saturday morning, and read straight through until I finished it (probably sometime Sunday).  Then my father told me of a bit that was memorable to him, and I realized it wasn't in what I had read.  I looked, saw my book was abridged, and was absolutely furious.  I would have been willing to take the extra time to read the whole thing, but I knew I wouldn't go back and reread it now--still haven't reread it.

That made me really vigilant about abridgements, even though no doubt they are sometimes a good idea.

The bit about Greeley is only a page--it might have slipped by you.

[Ella Gibbons]

Yes, PAT, we have said very little  about Lincoln’s Cooper Union Speech, which launched him into the candidacy of the presidency,  just as we have said very little about all those acts, provisos, laws that were enacted during this period.  (Llinks above)  Weren’t they all (with the exception of the Dred Scott decision which is a discussion in itself) compromises in the problem of allowing states to enter the union either as a slave state or a free state..?

"LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT." - Abraham Lincoln

 Even though those words are repeated in schools, by politicians, historians, etc.,  to me, they sound as if they are a challenge?  Do they to the rest of you?

What do you think?  MIGHT - DUTY- TO THE END.    See the whole speech here:

 http://www.mrlincolnandnewyork.org/inside.asp?ID=15&subjectID=2

What did you think of the "snake metaphor" Lincoln used to illustrate his views:  See page 233

JOAN mentions mechanization soon to be employed for farmers.  What I wonder is why the South ever thought they could win in a war with the industrialized North?  Surely some of them knew that the South mainly depended on crops, exports,  and slave labor.  I know that Congressmen from the South must have realized that and other folks, people such as Robert E. Lee.  I’m not sure where in this book, or if it is in the book, but all the North had to do was to blockade the ports of the South and they were without means to buy anything or do anything!  Most of the railroads built or being built were in the North and extending in the  West.  And industries to make guns, bullets, uniforms, all the accouterments of war.

GOSH, DO I AGREE, JEAN!  "The more things change, the more they stay the same!?! ................

Later, ella

[PatH]

Frances Seward is a very interesting character.  She was highly intelligent, and influenced her husband considerably, critiquing his speeches and, with her highly developed moral sense and passionate hatred of slavery, urging him to more extreme anti-slavery positions.

As time went on, she became more incapacitated by a series of nervous disorders.  She herself made an insightful diagnosis, that the nervous afflictions of so many women were the result of the frustrations of an educated woman's life.  In an unpublished essay:

"'To share in any kind of household work is to demean herself, and she would be thought mad to run, leap, or engage in active sports.'  She could dance all night, but it 'would be deemed unwomanly' and 'imprudent' for her to race with her children....Reflecting on 'the number of invalids that exist among women exempted frou Labour', she suggested that the 'want of fitting employment--real purpose in their life' was responsible."  p 155, boldface mine.

[mabel1015j]

Pat, that's a wonderful, thougthful quote you've posted and i'm sure very true. I also think that anyone on the "extremes" of "normal" in any area of life has a more difficult time in our "normal" society. So, being very intelligent, passionate, whatever -whether male or female, but especially female in the nineteenth century might send anyone into a mental disorder. People on the extremes have much more adjusting to do to fit into the "normal" society. For many it must be most frustrating and exhausting. ...........who should i be? how much should i compromise myself to be like everyone else? or like my family/friends want me to be? ......I think that has been a challenge for women thru most of history. "Reflecting on 'the number of invalids that exist among women exempted frou Labour', she suggested that the 'want of fitting employment--real purpose in their life' was responsible." Sounds like Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystic, uh?

Mary Lincoln had many challenges in her immediate family, the interest she had in politics had to be channeled thru a husband, the death of her son - at this time, and the conflicts on the war that she had w/ her biological family, which i suppose we will talk about later. I want to get the recent book on ML to see how she is portrayed by an author in the 21st century. AL certainly must have asked himself the same questions at times - am i lazy, as my father said i was? is reading the escape of a lazy person? .............I actually can identify w/ that one because my father grumped and growled frequently when i was reading a book and not doing something he considered to be more productive like mowing the grass, weeding the garden, cleaning the house, raking the leafs...... ......... jean

[JoanK]

hings change so they can remain the same.

franklin says:"Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it…...". I've heard the same statement about the many immigranty groups that are arriving now.

[JoanK]

3.  What were the .... weaknesses of each man as a potential presidential candidate?

That deserves a more thoughtful answer than I'm going to give.

Goodwin answers it for the three when she says that Lincoln is ".[n]ot hindered by the hubris, delusions, and inconsistencies that plagued his three rivals" (p224).

All of these refer to all the rivals, but some more than others.

Hubris refers to Seward: so overconfident of his selection that he ignores many chances to make political "hay", and also ignores or underestimates Greeley's enmity.

Delusion is Chase who believes what he wants to believe about his candidacy.

Inconsistency is all of them. Goodwin points out that Lincoln was the only one who stuck to the same positions throughout.

We'll see in the convention that Lincoln managed to turn his main disadvantage (the fact that he was relatively unknown) into an advantage. Another disadvantage was his appearance. Until people knew him, it was hard to take this "hick" serious as a President. I don't imagine he could be elected today without a "makeover" I can just imagine the TV aides trying to spruce him up and give him makeup for a TV debate.

[lucky]

Kearns gives us tidbits of the lives of those women close to the Team of Rivals”.  What is especially interesting is the physical problems of Seward’s wife. She refused to move to Washington with him preferring to stay in Auburn N. Y.   with her children.  I don’t recall how many children they had, but Kearns only tells us of the ones that lived. There undoubtedly were miscarriages in between these live births, since birth control other than abortion was basically unknown or of little use.  Reading between the lines I would venture to say that her reason not to move to Washington was to prevent future pregnancies.  Kearns also tells us that she was a sickly woman, that she was semi-invalid.  Frances Seward once speculated whether the various nervous afflictions and morbid habits that plagued so many women she knew had their origin in the frustrations of an educated woman’s life in the mid-nineteenth century.  An unpublished essay she wrote on the status of woman states, “Want of fitting employment- real purpose in their life was responsible.”  Well educated upper middle class women were encouraged to be sickly.  Catherine Beecher stated that three out of every five women of her acquaintance were invalids either due to excessive childbearing or the culture of the age.  They were encouraged to be ill.  It was a mark of distinction to be thought of as delicate.  One prominent physician remarked that “if a woman knew what danger she was in from her pelvic organs, she would not step from her carriage to the pavement.  According to the physicians what contributed to ill health in that era was education.  In 1873 a Dr. Edward Clark of Harvard published as book called, "Sex and Education” in which he argued that higher education destroyed the reproductive function of American women by overworking their physiological development at a critical time in their lives.  Such women were likely to become ill.  A Dr. Mitchell Weir had teh cure for “neurasthenia” as these ailments came to be called.  The patient was confined to bed for six weeks and reading was positively forbidden.  Charlotte Gilman in “The Yellow Wallpaper ( although a  short story) very aptly described the struggle that Frances Seward faced and the treatment prescribed by Dr. Mitchell Weir.

[mabel1015j]

You're reminding me of Women and Madness by Phyllis Chesler that first came out in the 1970's. Here's a comment about it from the Library Journal

Why are women pathologized, but not treated, when they exhibit a normal human response to abuse and stress - including the lifelong stress of second-class citizenship?

Phyllis Chesler confronts questions like these and persuasively argues that double standards of mental health and illness exist and that women are often punitively labeled as a function of gender, race, class, or sexual preference.

Jean

[JoanK]

Another book on the medical treatment of women during the period is by Barbara Ehrinreich. I can't remember the name -- I'll try to find it.

[PatH]

How about "For Her Own Good"?   You seem to have a choice of 150 or 200 years.

http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1237145207/ref=sr_pg_1?ie=UTF8&rs=1000&keywords=barbara%20ehrenreich%20for%20her%20own%20good&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Abarbara%20ehrenreich%20for%20her%20own%20good&page=1

[PatH]

We already saw some of Seward's mistakes.  Chase was overconfident too.  Thinking the nomination would just fall into his lap, he didn’t bother to work for it, rejecting offers of help, not checking that the delegates of his own state were pledged to him, etc.  He didn’t appoint a campaign manager to do the necessary maneuvering for him, and he himself had little feel for what people were thinking.

Bates was fairly conservative, and his attempts to appeal to a wider audience weakened his natural support without gaining new supporters.

[Ella Gibbons]

CHAPTERS 8-11 - NEW WEEK, NEW QUESTIONS, NEW START! 

TAKE A BREATH EVERYONE, A BREAK!!

PAT and I THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION, IT MEANS A LOT TO A DISCUSSION TO HAVE IDEAS AND OPINIONS FROM LOTS OF PEOPLE. 

IF YOU ARE JUST LURKING, READING, INTERESTED, DO POST! 

-----------------------------------------------------------------
First Question:

So why Chicago then.  And the Democrats this year.  What is it about the city?  Have you been there?  What do you remember about it?  What did it mean to the candidates?  To Lincoln?  What books have you read featuring Chicago?

[PatH]

So here come the Republicans, rolling into Chicago at the terrific speed of 60 mph, 40,000 strong, as Jean points out.  Since the city's population was a little over 100,000, it's no wonder they had to sleep on pool tables.  Did they realize the momentous nature of what they were doing?  Let's see how the drama plays out.

This week we're concentrating on chapters 8-11, starting with the Chicago convention, going on to the campaign, Lincoln's election, the tumultous national events which followed and Lincoln's selection of his cabinet, ending at the eve of his inauguration.

Where is everyone in the book?  If you haven't gotten this far, talk about where you are--there's plenty left to say.  If you're farther along, talk with us while we catch up.

[Ella Gibbons]

SHOWDOWN IN CHICAGO.  Let’s start with that.  I’ve been to the city a few times, loved it, my daughter goes every year to meet a friend who comes from Michigan.

From NYC it only took 16 hours by train in 1860.

Lavish preparations were made; citizens were asked to open their homes to those arriving as guests, boarding houses were full, as were hotels.  You could get a class of ale and a ham sandwich for ten cents!

"We are facing a crisis; there are troublous times ahead of us.   What this country will demand as its chief executive for the next four years is a man of the highest order of executive ability, a man of real statesmanlike qualities, well known to the country and of large experience in national affairs." said one speaker who was promoting Seward.

Doesn’t that sound like a speech that would apply today?  At our convention last year in Chicago?

Isn’t history fascinating?

HELLO, PAT!  Yes, where is everyone, taking a breather?

COME BACK FOLKS!  We are waiting for your comments!

I want to talk campaign strategy, never having been to one.

[mabel1015j]

Since i was ahead of the readings, i'll repost what i wrote in #91

I was astonished that 40,000 people came to the convention. Railroads had expanded across the country and i'm sure that is why so many were able to come. And, as was typical at the time, women were relegated to the side galleries, ironically, making men find a woman to accompany HIM to get a seat in the galleries. 10,000 people were in the convention hall. My question has always been when i read about big crowds and speech-makers before there was electricity - how do they hear what is going on on the stage, or from the floor?

It's been a while since "German-Americans" were considered as a voting block. That bought a smile to my face, remembering Ben Franklin's comment at one time that G-A'ns were a brutish, discourteous group.....yes, every immigrant group has had a similar comment made about them.

There is a wonderful "what if..........." historical moment - if there was no Horace Greeley who held a grudge about Seward, there may have been no Pres Lincoln. ..............jean

[PatH]

There is a wonderful "what if..........." historical moment - if there was no Horace Greeley who held a grudge about Seward, there may have been no Pres Lincoln. ..............jean

Yes, and Greeley worked hard because of his grudge.  No one expected him to be there, but he wormed his way in by getting appointed as a proxy representative for Oregon.  Then he worked through the night persuading the committee of undecided states that Seward couldn't win.

I hadn't realized that Oregon was a State already, but it was, admitted in 1859.  It turns out that there were already 33 States in 1860: The original 13 (DE, PA, NJ, GA, CN, MA, MD, SC, NH, VA, NY, NC, RI) plus Vermont 1791, Kentucky 1792, Tennessee 1796, Ohio 1803, Louisiana 1812, Indiana 1816, Mississippi 1817, Illinois 1818, Alabama 1819, Maine 1820, Missouri 1821, Arkansas 1836, Michigan 1837, Florida 1845, Texas 1845, Iowa 1846, Wisconsin 1848, California 1850, Minnesota 1858, and Oregon 1859.  That's more than I would have thought.

Kansas wasn't yet a state.  The Lecompton Constitution, which was supposed to sneak it in as a slave state, failed in Congress; it got in in 1861.

[PatH]

"German-Americans as a voting block".  I'd love to know how many they were; I have no notion, even though some of them were my husband's ancestors.

[Jonathan]

The problem some people had with a German-American voting block. That sounds a bit quaint now, doesn't it? But that was nothing compared to the problem many had with extending the franchise to Blacks. Free states had their 'black laws', which prevented free blacks in their midst from voting, serving on juries, or witnessing in court. It's been a long road for them.

And then there is the problem with abridgements. I liked the example Pat had for us. Wouldn't you agree that all reported or recorded history is an abridgement? Something or someone always gets left out. I guess the classic abridgement is the creation story in Genesis. It was obviously decided to keep it simple, but tantalyzing enough to invite lots of commentary.

The point I'm trying to make is that Doris Goodwin has succeeded so well in being comprehensive. Reading her makes one realize how much other historians of the period have left out. The posts relfect that. The lives of political wives somehow is made almost as interesting as the abolition plank in a party's platform. Of all First Ladies, Mary Todd Lincoln seems to have suffered the most unusual fate. She grew up with a great interest in politics, yet seemed to be shut out by her political husband, finding an outled for her energies in shopping trips, hoping, praying, for his reelection in '64 so that her debts would not come to light.

What am I reading about Chicago? I haven't yet read it, but it looks interesting. American Apocalypse: The Great Fire and the Myth of Chicago, by Ross Miller. That was only 11 years after the great convention of 1860. No 'short and simple annal' for this great American city. From village to metropolis in a few decades.

[lucky]

Lincoln was a product of his society as we all are.  Douglas portrayed him as “Negro-loving agitator bent on debasing white society”, but Lincoln did not believe in equality between the races, but he believed that “there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.  He agreed with Douglas that the black man “ is not my equal in many respects- certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral and intellectual endowment.  But in the right to eat the bread, without leave o anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.”  And yet it is interesting to note that there was no provision made for the freed slaves either during the war or when the war was over.  Doctorow’s “The March” is an excellent historical novel of the Civil War and he paints a very poignant picture or the freed slaves following the Union armies.  There was no food, no shelter, and little compassion.  And because Lincoln was the product of the society in which he lived he could not have thought otherwise because he would have lost the election in a state that not only supported discriminatory Black Laws but had even passed a special law making it a criminal offense to bring into the boundaries of Illinois “as person having in him one fourth negro blood, whether free or slave.”     Seward did not believe that the black man was the equal of the white, or was capable of assimilation  but nevertheless they deserved to have all the privileges of the whites.  One has to wonder, however, considering that the thinking of the time was that blacks were not the equal of the white man, why did the former black slaves, who were illiterate and uneducated get the vote sixty years before the women did?  This fact outraged Elizabeth Stanton and her co-workers in the Women’s Rights Movement, women who were well educated, articulate, and “forgotten.”  Abigail Adam’s admonition to her husband, “Remember the ladies”, was again forgotten for another three generations.
     

[JoanK]

This political convention took me back many years, remeembering when candidates were chosen at the conventions; many ballots and we heard rumors of deals made in "smoke filled rooms". The way we do it now is better (even though the primaries this time seemed to go on forever), but less dramatic.

[mabel1015j]

Yes, Joan, the conventions are hardly worth watching these days..........I remember reading about the 1960 convention and RFK trying to get LBJ to say "no" to JFK's offer of the v.p. What a drama that was...................jean

[Emily]

Since I am reading, "First Ladies" by Carl Sferrazza Anthony (first volume) and have finished the chapter on Mary Todd Lincoln, hope you don't mind if I comment on her entry into the position as First Lady.


Anthony describes Mary Lincoln, "She was intelligent and talented, gifted with witty vivid language. Her mind had a tremendous capacity for detail. She was highly literate, reciting Shakespeare and poetry from memory, translating German and French works by Victor Hugo, studying astromony. She spoke perfect French, was a student of opera, adored the theater, and worked hard to establish a library in Springfield. She had impeccable fashion and decorating taste."

Mary Lincoln suffered from an 'un-diagnosed' ailment that often flared to extremes after eating sweets, later termed to be diabetes.

She suffered from terrible headaches and even convulsions, but there was no test and therefore no treatment.

When Abraham learned he had won the election, his joyous shout to his wife was revealing, "We are elected"

No presidents wife had participated so fully in a presidential campaign as Mary Lincoln. She attended his rallies, she received journalists in her home in Springfield. She traveled to New York and spoke out on many subjects. She was harshly criticized by the press and it would only get worse during the White House years. Never before had the press so thouroughly covered a president's wife, and no woman had assumed the role under more trying circumstances.

Highly intelligent women who spoke out on any subject were not appreciated in that age, and things have not changed much today. They are only barely tolerated today and if they attempt to escape that narrow zone, they will be attacked and put in their place by the press. Nothing has changed except the numbers, we just have more blubbering buffoons today via television and print.

Anthony writes, "Her greatest political ability was a skillful judgement of individuals jockeying to get close to the president. Even with a mounting pack of critics, Mary, assumed and held her rightful position as lady of the mansion." She realized she had enemies all about her. In the cabinet, her two foes were Sec. of State William Seward and Treasury Sect. Salmon Chase. She saw their ambition was to use Lincoln to succeed him.

She saw Seward as weak on abolition. He attempted to control her State dinners. Chase's daughter hostess Kate fomented the hostility by audaciously receiving her guests in one White House room while the First Lady was receiving hers in another. She was told that Chase was spreading rumors to discredit her.

She disliked Seward long before the inaugural. She lashed out at him, "It is said you are the power behind the throne. I'll show you that Mr. Lincoln is president yet." Mary demanded he be fired along with Chase, President Lincoln told her that if he did as she wished, he would have no cabinet. Mary did get many 'pro Lincoln' appointees in through her husband and lessened the power of their enemies.

Even the brutal sect. of war Edwin Stanton was no match for Mary when she wanted 'Pro-Lincoln' appointees. Stanton at first refused to accomodate her requests, but later did and then lied about it. The author has extensive notes and sources in the book.

During the war she refused to leave the White House on a generals orders when Confederates were nearby and the White House was unprotected. She showed courage, and perhaps had her diabetes been treatable at the time, her life would have been easier. She was the first political wife, and the desire for her husbands success and safety from enemies within and without, led her to be attacked from all sides. Even in her failure she fought back.

Her life became one tragedy after another.

Emily

[PatH]

Lincoln was a product of his society as we all are.  Douglas portrayed him as “Negro-loving agitator bent on debasing white society”, but Lincoln did not believe in equality between the races, but he believed that “there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.  He agreed with Douglas that the black man “ is not my equal in many respects- certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral and intellectual endowment.  But in the right to eat the bread, without leave o anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.”

Yes, Lucky, it's interesting to try to figure out Lincoln's attitude.  Goodwin says historians have failed to find a single act of racial bigotry in his life, and quotes  Frederick Douglass, who often criticized Lincoln, that he was "the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color." and that he felt with Lincoln an "entire freedom from popular prejudice against the colored race." (207-8)

That's a good point about no provision being made for the freed Blacks.  People don't really follow through, do they?

[PatH]

Hi, Jonathan, it's good to see you.  I agree with you about how thorough Goodwin seems, though, since I'm no historian, I can't tell what she left out.

Emily, it's good of you to share that extra information about Mary Todd Lincoln with us.  I wonder what modern medicine and present-day opportunities would have done for her.

I hope you'll continue sharing insights your us, whether or not you're reading the book.