[1]<\/a>, Doris Kearns Goodwin projects us into the minds and souls of Abraham Lincoln and his Cabinet.\u00a0 I saw many parallels between Frodo and Lincoln in reading this incredible biography, especially in the areas of patience and compassion.\u00a0 On many occasions Lincoln had good reason to dismiss his Cabinet members and generals, but again and again he withheld both judgment and punitive action.\u00a0 I was continually amazed at this President\u2019s greatness and goodness.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/31.media.tumblr.com\/e10d2b26d847ce1198525aa6c6ab5d5f\/tumblr_inline_n7fwwyM5XQ1s88eo4.jpg\")
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After being elected the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln turned to the task of choosing his Cabinet.\u00a0 In this terribly important and dangerous time for the Union, he had to choose carefully and wisely.\u00a0 Surprisingly, his appointments included three of the men who had run against him in the 1860 presidential race.\u00a0 Lincoln\u2019s first appointment was for the position of Secretary of State.\u00a0 His choice was William Henry Seward, probably the most well known politician in the country at the time.\u00a0 Seward served as the governor of New York as well as a senator in the United States Congress.\u00a0 Although he was surprised and deeply disappointed that Lincoln defeated him, yet, in time he accepted the position of Secretary of State.\u00a0 And even though he was skeptical of the upstart Lincoln at the beginning, Seward grew to love and respect his Commander in Chief.<\/p>\n
Lincoln\u2019s other two primary rivals were Salmon Chase and Edward Bates.\u00a0 Bates was probably the least ambitious of the three rivals.\u00a0 He loved his wife deeply, and they had seventeen children.\u00a0 He was Lincoln\u2019s choice for Attorney General and proved to be a loyal friend and colleague.\u00a0 Salmon Chase was the most religious of the three top rivals, but he was also the most self-centered and self-serving.\u00a0 Of all the choices Lincoln made, Chase was the one who gave him the most grief, even though Lincoln cut him the most slack.\u00a0 Again and again, in spite of Chase\u2019s shenanigans, Lincoln continued to stand up for his Secretary of the Treasury.\u00a0 Like Frodo with Gollum, Lincoln\u2019s longsuffering with Chase was admirable.\u00a0 I would not have been so kind.<\/p>\n
The remainder of the Cabinet was also carefully chosen, but not without a large amount of political persuasion from those close to Lincoln.\u00a0 Gideon Wells became Secretary of the Navy, Caleb Smith became Secretary of the Interior, and Montgomery Blair took the position of Postmaster General.\u00a0 Simon Cameron took the job of Secretary of War, but due to a large amount of controversy, the position eventually ended up in the hands of the one who would end up being Lincoln\u2019s greatest supporter, Edwin Stanton.\u00a0 After Lincoln\u2019s death, Stanton could only rarely hold back his grief and constant stream of tears.\u00a0 Finally, Lincoln\u2019s Vice Presidents were Hannibal Hamlin and Andrew Johnson.\u00a0 Thus the stage was set for this Team of Rivals<\/em>.<\/p>\nAs the country split in two over states\u2019 rights and the abolition of slavery, so did the preparations for civil war, the most costly war that would ever consume the new nation-state.\u00a0 Many in the North underestimated the strength and tenacity of the South; in fact, many believed that the war would be over in weeks.\u00a0 But the weeks turned into months and the months into years.\u00a0 Thus, even as Frodo faced the darkness of Mordor, so Lincoln was now forced to face his new Southern enemies.\u00a0 To see the Union fragmented tore into Lincoln\u2019s heart.\u00a0 No American president, perhaps with the exception of Franklin D. Roosevelt, had to face a greater challenge.\u00a0 One by one, the first fierce battles were won by the Confederates.\u00a0 A reluctance to press the fight forward was a big reason for the losses.\u00a0 The brunt of the responsibility fell on Lincoln\u2019s audacious commanding General, George B. McClellan.\u00a0 McClellan was Lincoln\u2019s choice, although time after time, his Cabinet disagreed with this appointment.\u00a0 McClellan was in many ways a disappointment both to the nation and to the Lincoln Cabinet, but again and again, Lincoln would back his general.\u00a0 I almost screamed out loud, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you get rid of this self-centered idiot!\u201d\u00a0 But to my chagrin, Lincoln kept up his Frodo-like mercy toward McClellan.\u00a0 I saw McClellan as a Gollum; Lincoln did not.\u00a0 Eventually, however, Lincoln let McClellan go and replaced him with several other bumbling commanders:\u00a0 Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker, and George Meade.\u00a0 Finally, Lincoln settled for the winning team of Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman and in time, the North won the war.<\/p>\n
Abraham Lincoln faced many trials and obstacles in his life.\u00a0 Not all of them were due to politics and war.\u00a0 Lincoln and his wife Mary loved one another deeply, but they were not without major problems.\u00a0 They both struggled with bouts of depression, although Mary\u2019s depression was more chronic than Lincoln\u2019s contrary to popular myth.\u00a0 Who would not be depressed upon losing a child?\u00a0 I was astonished at this relationship.\u00a0 They never quit.\u00a0 They just kept getting up with each fall.\u00a0 Mary stuck with her husband until the end. \u00a0Their love was real.<\/p>\n
The burden of leadership.\u00a0 Can all be called to lead?\u00a0 I believe that anyone can lead; however, there are those who are gifted with a higher call of leadership, and Lincoln had that call, as did Frodo.\u00a0 Both of these leaders were lifted out of obscurity.\u00a0 Both exhibited humble strength.\u00a0 Both faced war and came out victors, but not without scars.\u00a0 Both were kind and merciful, even to those whom others would have quickly written off.\u00a0 One was fictional; the other was bigger than fiction \u2013 but both had an impact on others.\u00a0 And good leaders do just that.<\/p>\n
Team of Rivals<\/em> is a great book, one of the best biographies I have ever read.\u00a0 I believe it was a brilliant read for our class.\u00a0 In subtle ways it instructed us about what good leaders are.\u00a0 It also showed us that those who are least expected to make a difference could do just that.\u00a0 I love this man Abraham Lincoln.\u00a0 He was bigger than life.\u00a0 He was even big in death.\u00a0 I wonder what the world might have been had he lived.\u00a0 But he does live on \u2013 as does Frodo.<\/p>\n\n
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[1]<\/a> Doris Kearns Goodwin. Team of Rivals<\/em> (New York: Simon & Shuster, 2005)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I will never forget my first reading of the Lord of the Rings.\u00a0 I loved Tolkien\u2019s characters, especially Frodo and Samwise Gamgee.\u00a0 Although Frodo and Sam loved each other deeply, they did not always agree \u2013 especially about how to deal with Gollum \u2013 the obvious antagonist in the story.\u00a0 Sam was at times ready […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,27],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-goodwin","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1371,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/1371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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