I’ll wager few of the most virulent Lincoln haters will read Andrew Ferguson’s new book, Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America (Atlantic Monthly Press).
That’s a shame, since Ferguson ? an admitted Lincoln buff ? spends little time praising the 16th president. Instead he examines why Lincoln continues to generate such fascination and interest ? even among those who devote much of their time debunking myths about “Honest Abe.”
Speaking of myths, one of the most popular in recent years has involved Lincoln’s willingness to accept ideas and input from colleagues with a range of political views, including the “Team of Rivals” Doris Kearns Goodwin described in her popular Lincoln biography.
Bush critics have bemoaned the 43rd president’s unwillingness to emulate Lincoln in seeking a broad-based, bipartisan approach to the nation’s most difficult issues. How might those critics respond to the following passage from Ferguson’s book?:
“Lincoln was without executive ability,” wrote the Illinois senator Lyman Trumbull. His attorney general, Edward Bates, wrote in his diary: “It is now evident that the Administration has no system ? no unity ? no accountability ? no subordination. Men are appointed and not trusted ? interfered with, and so relieved from all responsibility. Of course, therefore, things run all wrong.”
Another cabinet member, Salmon P. Chase, complained of Lincoln’s uncommunicative nature, especially as it showed itself in cabinet meetings. “There is, at the present time, no cabinet except in name. The Heads of the Departments come together now and then ? nominally twice a week ? but no reports are made; no regular discussions held; no ascertained conclusions reached.”
Supremely self-confident, Lincoln rarely solicited advice from those around him, as modern managers are always told to do, and even more rarely did he reveal his thoughts until they were fully matured. He evidently had no faith in that essential technique of the modern, nonhierarchical corporation, the brainstorming session, partly because he knew that no one had a brain nearly as big as his. Even his most sensitive decisions were presented to his colleagues as a fait accompli. “As a politician and as president,” wrote his Illinois friend Leonard Swett, “he arrived at all his conclusions from his own reflections, and when his opinion was once formed, he never doubted it was right.”
Despite the fact that this passage directly contradicts Goodwin’s theme (or at least the chattering class’ interpretation of Goodwin’s theme) that Lincoln’s greatness was based on his willingness to accept input from all corners, Goodwin delivers a dust jacket endorsement of Ferguson’s book (“a fresh look at Abraham Lincoln and his impact on our country”).