Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The First in a Month-Long Series Honoring the United States of America, July 2023
Note: There are so many things I want to share with you…I have yet to tell you about the eyes of the people in the village near Kherson, Ukraine (although you did witness the haunting of them in the videos in this post.) There was a school bombed in Ukraine and there is a photo story of this coming, a further bearing witness to the destruction occurring even today in this devastating European war. We saw a Russian tank, taken out by the Ukrainians, not that day but not that long ago, either. So much happened that one day…After Ukraine, I stayed a few days in Vienna and then decided to take a bus for the first time to Poland, specifically Krakow. I wanted to go to Auschwitz that visit but there none of the required English tour guides were available. (It’s probably good, though, that I couldn’t get in after what I had just witnessed in Ukraine.) There’s Remembrance Day in London, an event this Yank never tires of attending when possible (this last November 2022, one of the workers placed a stack of programs in my hand and asked me to pass them out in the area I was standing in Parliament Square! ‘Twas an honor!) I long to share these stories and so much more…
But, it’s July now and my thoughts have turned to home.
Here is a photo I took on a walk back to my car from school in San Francisco a few years back - a bit of graffiti stenciled onto the side of a newspaper holder - which sums up how I feel about my country:
There is a lot that is broken in the United States right now, and in California, where I live, in particular. Multiple family members of mine have left our home state looking for better opportunities and, indeed, have found them, in Texas, in North Carolina. (It strikes me just now that this is a reverse migration - those making the current exodus are retracing the steps of the people in the 1840’s and 1930’s, and at other times in our short history, who came to California for the exact same reason so many are now leaving.)
In New York City in 2020 during the pandemic, I witnessed ANGER unleashed, a living and crazed thing: large stores and small businesses broken open and bleeding…merchandise, hopes. There was so much shattered glass on the streets of Manhattan and elsewhere. A Kristallnacht. As I walked to work, I saw employees turned away from their jobs because the stores in which they worked were damaged beyond functioning with most products taken. United States Postal Service vehicles set on fire, destroyed. I was sent home early from my Urgent Care Nurse Practitioner job because our admininstrators feared we might be harmed by the violence. The Chief Medical Officer called me in my hotel to make sure I’d returned there safely.
In no other country, except maybe Ukraine, have I witnessed the FEAR which struck our land when covid struck our land. So many of my patients simply cried as they told me their stories. People hadn’t seen loved ones for months.
Living near San Francisco, I have yet another front row seat into lives destroyed by a pandemic: the growing number of housed and homeless who are becoming helpless to the siren call of fentanyl and other poisons.
A movie has just opened in our theaters, The Sound of Freedom, shedding light on the international problem of child trafficking which is also our exponentially growing national problem.
There is a lot that is wrong and sad and hurt and unjust in the United States right now. This has always been our refrain…along with our National Anthem.
And yet…
It is still an oft-glorious place. I am in awe of both its natural and human-contrived beauty and also of the beauty of its founding principles. The United States of America is a great idea and a country worthy of celebration.
And, so, during this month of July, I plan to post stories based in, or about, the U.S. I’d like to highlight some of our well-known and some lesser-known but no-less-spectacular National Parks in Virginia, Kentucky, and Arizona. (Can you guess which?) I’d also like to pay homage to some incredible Americans, heroes of mine. And yours, too, I bet.
On this last point, one of my greatest heroes is Abraham Lincoln and today, for a Friday Feature and also as my first America-honoring story this July 2023, I’d like to tell you about a book I read: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
I listened to the audio version of this book, narrated by the author. (Authors as narrators doesn’t always work, but in this case it was perfect.) This biography of not only Abraham Lincoln but key cabinet members - including Henry Seward, Salman P. Chase, and Edward Bates - was intricately-detailed and I can understand why it was 10 years in the writing. I looked forward to listening to it on my hikes and during my commute and didn't want it to end, its almost 1000 pages notwithstanding!
Because of this scholarly and masterful and highly readable and engrossing endeavor, I now have a much deeper understanding of our 16th President. The book could easily have been titled, And Malice Toward None because Lincoln indeed truly embodied the practice of holding resentment or ill-feelings toward no one, in every aspect of his life. He had so many reasons to dislike so many (I, for one, wanted to choke Salman P. Chase for much of the book for his underhandedness toward Lincoln's good nature and I felt the same toward General McClellan), yet he refused to do so and treated all with almost a supernatural magnanimity. Truthfully, I find myself after learning more of this incredible man, our 16th president, trying to harbor less malice towards those to whom I would normally feel it is rightfully deserved. I find myself trying to live by Lincoln's example.
“This, then, is a story of Lincoln’s political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes. He possessed an acute understanding of the sources of power inherent in the presidency, an unparalleled ability to keep his governing coalition intact, a tough-minded appreciation of the need to protect his presidential prerogatives, and a masterful sense of timing.”
Many excerpts from the book stand out for me. For example, I found myself early on in the book relating to his love of reading and of literature. I absorbed the fact (once again) that he schooled himself at home. (I remember a sketch of Lincoln from my childhood reading on the floor by the light of a candle.)
"Allowed to attend school only 'by littles' between stints of farmwork, 'the aggregate of all his schooling,' Lincoln admitted years later, 'did not amount to one year.' He had never even set foot 'inside of a college or academy building' until he acquired his license to practice law. What he had in the way of education...he had to pick up on his own. Books became his academy, his college. The printed word united his mind with the great minds of generations past. Relatives and neighbors recalled that he scoured the countryside for books and read every volume 'he could lay his hands on.'...[G]aining access to reading material proved difficult. When Lincoln obtained copies of the King James Bible, John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables,...[and] Lessons in Elocution, he could not contain his excitement. Holding Pilgrim's Progress in his hands, 'his eyes sparkled, and that day he could not eat, and that night he could not sleep."
At one point, as I arrived home while listening to the book, I parked and left the car running, remaining riveted to the story because, even though I obviously knew the outcome,I was just about to hear the nomination at the Chicago Republican Convention of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency and, oh, what a story it was!
His mastery at including political enemies in his cabinet and his quiet steadfast determination during the Civil War to keep our broken country from fracturing forever left me astounded. Quiet. Humble. Extraordinary. Genius.
“His success in dealing with the strong egos of the men in his cabinet suggests that in the hands of a truly great politician the qualities we generally associate with decency and morality—kindness, sensitivity, compassion, honesty, and empathy—can also be impressive political resources.”
He genuinely embodied the words he spoke during his Gettysburg Address:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
I think he loved. Deeply.
“Lincoln had internalized the pain of those around him—the wounded soldiers, the captured prisoners, the defeated Southerners. Little wonder that he was overwhelmed at times by a profound sadness that even his own resilient temperament could not dispel.”
“On the return trip, they passed a brigade of black soldiers, who rushed forward to greet the president, screaming, yelling, shouting: ‘Hurrah for the Liberator; Hurrah for the President.’ Their ‘spontaneous outburst’ moved Lincoln to tears, and his voice was so broken by emotion that he could hardly reply.”
Near the end of the book (which I put off finishing for days), as the assassination neared, having grown to love the President even more (for in the reading of the book, Lincoln became an even greater man in my eyes and in my heart, an even greater hero), I dreaded his going to Ford's Theater. I begged aloud, “Don’t go!” I devised ways to prevent him from stepping foot inside. Yet, he did. And then he died. And, when he was gone, my brain and heart could hardly bear it.
How I wept when he died, and still do. I grieve a man I never knew and yet know to my very core.
Team of Rivals is brilliant in its ability to tell the story of the humble greatness of Abraham Lincoln.
Anyone interested in American History or Lincoln, specifically, or the Civil War, or who wishes to visit Civil War sites, would glean much inspiration and knowledge from this book.
The book was made into a movie, Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg. The following is one of my favorite scenes:
I’ve included this review on Goodreads.
(If you’re a reader or bookworm or bluestocking or all of the above like me, join me there! I’d love to follow your book selections! Let me know if you’ve signed up in the comments!)
I took a road trip last year and visited Gettysburg National Military Park for the very first time.
While there, I imagined the soldiers fighting, and then lying upon that very ground, “hallowing” it. And, I imagined our president, speaking the following words there a few months later, words which I think every American should consider voicing aloud occasionally. Perhaps every July…
The Gettysburg Address
Delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
Thank you for your comments, book recommendation, and the tribute to this amazing President.