Abraham Lincoln & The Tools of Influence Selected excerpts from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s (2005)

Background: was the 16th president of the . He came from relative obscurity to win the nomination for the 1860 Republican party over three far more illustrious candidates. He was elected in 1860, facing not only the secession of southern states but a northern electorate deeply fractured between radicals and conservatives. In 1863 he ended slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation. He always insisted, while many would have settled for less, on the complete restoration of the union, requiring an unambiguous military victory and southern surrender. Re-elected in 1864, he was assassinated in April 1865, less than one week after the end of the war. He is considered by many scholars to be the best president in United States history.

As Goodwin’s title suggests, Lincoln was a master coalition builder. Even a Confederate newspaper, the Charleston Mercury, noted this quality: “[Lincoln] has called around him in counsel the ablest and most earnest mean of his country. Where he has lacked in individual ability, learning, experience or statesmanship, he has sought and found it” (p.701). But Lincoln’s political ability extended far beyond coalitions. He was such an adroit politician, and governed in such demanding times, that we can readily use him to illustrate all 12 influence tactics comprising the Leverage Inventory.

Below we present the 12 influence tactics, organized into four groups – Persuasion (Ethos, Logos & Pathos), Relationships: Negotiation (Allocentrism, Exchange & Might), Relationships: Structure (Networks, Coalitions & Team-building) and Meta-Tools (Intentionality, Situation Awareness & Agency). We illustrate each tactic with examples from Lincoln’s words or behavior. While he drew successfully on the full range of strategies, even he had tendencies and relative strengths.

Because he was so multiple in his use of influence tactics, he clearly relied on all three broader strategies – soft power, hard power and smart power. We do not break his actions down into these strategies here, but you might ask you yourself where you see examples of each as you read these excerpts. He was such a well- loved man, personally and professionally, he clearly had significant soft power. And, as Commander in Chief of the Union army, doggedly insisting on a full southern surrender, he clearly used significant hard power. But his greatest asset may well have been his smart power, as time and time again he seemed to understand circumstances better than those around him, allowing him to outmaneuver his many challengers.

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SECTION I. PERSUASION. These are the three elements of rhetoric – ethos, logos and pathos. It is what people first notice, and often remember, but is only the veneer atop many potential layers of influence tactics (discussed below). While it often receives disproportionate attention, it does matter. And in more than just formal presentations.

ETHOS: The character of the speaker. It is largely about credibility, but credibility from a variety of sources, including moral character, disinterest, expertise and similarity to the audience.

Ethos is the most often neglected element of rhetoric. It is multi-faceted, and hence especially difficult to capture in a short survey. But there is little question it was a major source of influence for Lincoln. Ethos seems one of the reasons Lincoln was so under-estimated before people knew him and so highly respected afterwards. No lawyer on the circuit was better loved than Lincoln, a fellow lawyer recalled. “He arrogated to himself no superiority over anyone – not even the most obscure member of the bar…. He was remarkably gentle with young lawyers…. No young lawyer ever practised in the courts with Mr. Lincoln who did not in all his after life have a regard for him akin to personal affection.” (p.150)

[Lincon’s many unexpected achievements in his first three years of office] had been accomplished, [American minister to Britain, Charles Francis] Adams acknowledged, with a remnant tinge of condescension, not because Lincoln possessed “any superior genius” but because he, “from the beginning to the end, impressed upon the people the conviction of his honesty and fidelity to one great purpose.” (p.595)

This is not to say he was not ambitious. Far from it. Finally, Lincoln’s profound and elevated sense of ambition – “an ambition,” [historian Dan] Fehrenbacher observes, “notably free of pettiness, malice, and overindulgence,” shared little common ground with Chase’s blatant obsession with office, Seward’s tendency toward opportunism, or the ambivalent ambition that led Bates to withdraw from public office. Though Lincoln desired success as fiercely as any of his rivals, he did not allow his quest for office to consume the kindness and openheartedness with which he treated supporters and rivals alike, nor alter his steady commitment to the antislavery cause. (p.256)

His character was revealed even in triumph. Here, in the field, as reports came in about Grant’s successes in the final battles of the war. When [Lincoln’s wife] Mary’s party arrived at noon on April 6, Lincoln brought them into the drawing room of the River Queen and relayed the latest bulletins, all positive, from [General Ulysses] Grant. “His whole appearance, pose, and bearing had marvelously changed,” Senator Harlan noted. “He was, in fact, transfigured. That indescribable sadness which had previously seemed to be an adamantine element of his very being had been suddenly changed for an equally indescribable expression of serene joy, as if conscious that the great purpose of his life had been

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attained.” Nonetheless, the marquis marveled, “it was impossible to detect in him the slightest feeling of pride, much less of vanity.” [emphasis added]

LOGOS: The logic of the argument itself.

As a skilled debater this was fundamental for Lincoln, likely taken for granted. Yet still important, as seen in the following example. Speaking in Springfield, Lincoln attacked the decision in characteristic fashion, not by castigating the Court but by meticulously exposing flaws of logic. The Chief Justice, Lincoln said, “insists at great length that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution.” Yet in at least five states, black voters acted on the ratification of the Constitution and were among the “We the People” by whom the Constitution was ordained and established. The founders, he acknowledged, did not “declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity.” But they did declare all men “equal in ‘certain inalienable rights, among which were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ … They meant simply to declare the right, so the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.” (p. 190)

PATHOS: Emotional resonance with the audience.

Lincoln was famous for his stories and humor. Pathos was clearly one of his “go to” tools. Here he is describing his approach. Though the cause be “naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel,” the sanctimonious reformer could do no more pierce the heart of the drinker or the slave-owner than “penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him.” In order to “win a man to your cause,” Lincoln explained, you must first reach his heart, “the great high road to his reason.” (p.168) [emphasis added]

Here’s Goodwin commentary, including a nice example. His remarkable array of gifts as historian, storyteller, and teacher combined with a lucid, relentless, yet always accessible logic. Instead of the ornate language so familiar to men like Webster, Lincoln used irony and humor, laced with workaday, homespun images to build an eloquent tower of logic. The proslavery argument that a vote for the Wilmot Proviso threatened the stability of the entire Union was reduced to absurdity by analogy – “because I may have refused to build an addition to my house, I thereby have decided to destroy the existing house!” Such flashes of figurative language were always available to Lincoln to drive home a point, gracefully educating while entertaining – in a word, communicating an enormously complicated issue with wit, simplicity, and a massive power of moral persuasion. (p.166)

And finally Bates, standing in for the many who initially were taken aback at Lincoln’s rhetoric. By the end of his tenure as Attorney General, Bates had formed a more spacious understanding of the president’s unique leadership style. While troubled at the start by Lincoln’s “never-failing fund of anecdote,” he had come to realize that storytelling played a central role in the President’s mind

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is such,” Bates remarked, “that his thought habitually takes on this form of illustration, by which the point he wishes to enforce is invariably brought home with a strength and clearness impossible in hours of abstract argument. (p.675)

SECTION II. RELATIONSHIPS: NEGOTIATION. Allocentrism, Exchange and Might are the foundations of dyadic negotiation.

ALLOCENTRISM: Orientation toward others’ perspectives (as opposed to an ego-centric orientation toward the self). Highly related to empathy and perspective-taking.

Though Lincoln’s empathy…would prove an enormous asset to his political career. “His crowning gift of political diagnosis,” suggested [Helen] Nicolay [whose father would become Lincoln’s private secretary], “was due to his sympathy…which gave him the power to forecast with uncanny accuracy what his opponents were likely to do.” She described how, after listening to his colleagues talk at a Whig Party caucus, Lincoln would cast off his shawl, rise from his chair, and say: “From your talk, I gather the Democrats will do so and so…I should do so and so to checkmate them.” He proceeded to outline all “the moves for days ahead; making them all so plain that his listeners wondered why they had not seen it that way themselves.” Such capacity to intuit the inward feelings and intentions of others would be manifest throughout his career. (p.104)

An important theme for Lincoln, before, during and after the war, was that the southerners were less different from northerners than many believed. Unlike the majority of antislavery orators, who denounced the South and castigated slaveowners as corrupt and un-Christian, Lincoln pointedly denied fundamental differences between Northerners and Southerners. He argued that “they are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up…. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself.” (p.167)

It’s also instructive to consider an uncharacteristically ineffective attempt by Lincoln to be allocentric. Lincoln’s remarkable empathy had singularly failed him in this initial approach to the impending consequences of emancipation [he advocated voluntary emigration of freed slaves]. Though he had tried to put himself in the place of blacks and suggest what he thought was best for them, his lack of contact with the black community left him unaware of their deep attachment to their country and sense of outrage at the thought of removal. In time, Lincoln’s friendship with Frederick Douglass and personal contact with hundreds of black soldiers willing to give up their lives for their freedom would create a deeper understanding of his black countrymen that would allow him to cast off forever his thoughts of colonization. (p.470)

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EXCHANGE: A willingness for quid pro quo, a preference for going beyond it.

As with any professional politician, Lincoln was well practiced in the art of exchange. Here he is garnering votes in support of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery. He assigned two of his allies in the House to deliver the votes of two wavering members. When they asked how to proceed, he said, “I am President of the United States, clothed with great power. The abolition of slavery by constitutional provisions settles the fate, for all coming time, not only the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come – a measure of such importance that those two votes must be procured. I leave it to you to determine how it shall be done: but remember that I am President of the United States, clothed with immense power, and I expect you to procure those votes.” It was clear to his emissaries that his powered extended to plum assignments, pardons, campaign contributions and government jobs for relatives and friends of faithful members. Brooklyn Democrat Moses F. Odell agreed to change is vote; when the session ended, he was given a lucrative post of navy agent in . (p.687)

But Lincoln went far beyond quid pro quo. Indeed, he went far beyond the more general notion of reciprocity. He explicitly preached something we might call “beyond reciprocity”. [Assistant Navy Secretary Gustavus] Fox was thrilled to hear that Winter Davis [who many thought responsible for Lincoln’s sacking Postmaster Montgomery Blair] had been defeated in Maryland. “You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I,” Lincoln said. “A man has not time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him.” (p.665)

In remitting the sentence [a court martial for derogating a superior], Lincoln tried to impart some of the measured outlook that had served him so well: “No man resolved to make the most of himself, can spare time for the personal contention…Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog, than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.” (p.570)

He did much more than preach this approach. After the notoriously egotistical General McClellan kept him waiting an hour and a half and then went to bed without seeing him: To [aide John] Hay’s surprise, Lincoln “seemed not to have noticed it specially, saying it was better at this time not to be making points of etiquette & personal dignity.” He would hold McClellan’s horse, he once said, if a victory could be achieved. (p.383)

He took this approach in many situations more substantive than McClellan’s ante-room. The first Goodwin writes about was his loss in the 1955 Senate race to Congressman Lyman Trumbull. After 9 rounds of balloting in the state senate, Lincoln capitulated, for the good of an anti-slavery coalition, despite out-polling the eventual victor 10:1. Lincoln’s magnanimity served him well. While Seward and Chase would lose friends in victory– Seward by neglecting at the height of his success his old friend , and Chase by not

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understanding the lingering resentments that followed in the wake of his 1849 Senate victory – Lincoln, in defeat, gained friends. Neither Trumbull nor [Trumbull’s chief supporter, Illinois state senator Norman] Judd would ever forget Lincoln’s generous behavior. Indeed, both men would assist him in his bid for the U.S. Senate in 1858, and Judd would play a critical role in his run for the presidency in 1860. (pp.170-173)

Another extraordinary example was his relationship with Edwin Stanton. He first met him when Stanton snubbed him when they were supposed to work on a legal case together. Snub doesn’t do it justice, as it involves months of work, hundreds of miles traveled, and vast differences in professional status. It’s a humiliating and heartbreaking story. Unimaginable as it might seem, after Stanton’s bearish behavior, at their next encounter six years later, Lincoln would offer Stanton “the most powerful civilian post within his gift” – the post of secretary of war. Lincoln’s choice of Stanton would reveal, as would his subsequent dealings with Trumbull and Judd, a singular ability to transcend personal vendetta, humiliation, or bitterness. As for Stanton, despite his initial contempt for the “long armed Ape,” he would not only accept the offer but come to respect and love Lincoln more than any person outside of his immediate family. (pp.173-175)

There is no shortage of these examples. His dealings with the Blair family engendered similar feelings (p.661). Seemingly half the book is about his forbearance of Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase. This approach extended even to the Confederate army and leadership. Many argue that the Reconstruction Era would have been very different had Lincoln lived to govern with this approach. With the war drawing to a close, Sherman inquired of Lincoln: “What was to be done with the rebel armies when defeated? And what should be done with the political leaders, such as Jeff. Davis, etc.?” Lincoln replied that “all he wanted of us was to defeat the opposing armies, and to get the men composing the Confederate armies back to their homes, at work on their farms and in their shops.” He wanted no retaliation or retribution. “Let them have their horses to plow with, and, if you like, their guns to shoot crows with. I want no one punished; treat them liberally all around. We want those people to return to their allegiance to the Union and submit to the laws.” (p.713)

MIGHT: A willingness to use coercive power. More generally, an ability to address difficult issues and tolerate conflict.

Lincoln was the commander-in-chief of the Union army and, until he found Grant, more aggressive militarily than his generals. So clearly he understood Might and was capable of using coercive power. But personally Lincoln’s style was low on might. Many felt too low. Anxious about Missouri’s troubles and anguished by the illness of his wife, Julia, who had suffered a slight paralytic stroke, Bates uncharacteristically lashed out at Lincoln. “Immense mischief is caused by his lack of vim,” he wrote his brother-in-law, the former governor of Missouri; “he has

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no will, now power to command—He makes no body afraid of him. And hence discipline is relaxed, & stupid inanity takes the place of action.” (p.394)

Yet Lincoln was capable of acting forcefully when needed. He famously went through numerous generals before finding Ulysses Grant, with whom he saw eye to eye. His correspondence with his generals is full of his calling out incompetence, disagreements and weaknesses. Lincoln’s patience had its limits, however. When Major General Robert H. Milroy railed about “the blind unreasoning hatred” of [his commanding officer, General Henry] Halleck that he claimed had supposedly led to his suspension from command, Lincoln was unyielding. “I have scarcely seen anything from you at any time, that did not contain imputations against your superiors,” Lincoln replied. “You have constantly urged the idea that you were persecuted because you did not come from West-Point, and you repeat it in these letters. This, my dear general, is I fear, the rock on which you have split.” (p.528)

And it was his style to subsequently soften his rare outbursts. But Lincoln refused to let resentment rankle. Discovering that a hastily written note to General Franz Sigel had upset the general, he swiftly followed up with another. “I was a little cross,” he told Sigel, “I ask pardon. If I do get up a little temper I have no sufficient time to keep it up.” Such gestures on Lincoln’s part repaired injured feelings that might have escalated into lasting animosity. (p.512)

SECTION III. RELATIONSHIPS: STRUCTURE. Influence is about more than one-on-one interactions. Here we consider the broader set of relationships – Networks, Coalitions, Team-building. Cultivating, utilizing, improving a wide range of relationships is critical.

NETWORKS: Cultivating a broad, disparate set of informal relationships.

A defining quality of informal networks is the information flow. Although the following example is not something Lincoln instigated, it perfectly illustrates the role of information in networks, and was something Lincoln benefitted from directly. Stanton even moreso. And, in true network fashion, Lincoln’s relationship with Stanton.

Stanton was further disgruntled when McClellan kept him waiting on a number of occasions. Unlike Lincoln, the proud war secretary did not ignore the arrogance of the general in chief. After one particularly galling experience, when he had been forced to wait for an hour after stopping by McClellan’s headquarters on his way to the War Department, Stanton angrily announced: “That will be the last time General McClellan will give either myself or the President the waiting snub.” A few weeks later, Stanton delivered orders to transfer the telegraph office from McClellan’s headquarters to a room adjoining his office in the War Department. Dispatches from the miraculous new system that connected Washington with army officials, camps, and forts throughout the entire

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North would no longer be funneled through McClellan. McClellan was furious, considering the transfer “his humiliation.” He had, indeed, lost significant influence, for the adjacent telegraph office not only allowed Stanton to exercise control over all military communications, but ensured that Lincoln would now spend many daily hours with his war secretary than his general in chief. (p.427)

COALITIONS: Identifying and obtaining the support of key people, especially those from other circles.

Goodwin’s entire conceit is that Lincoln’s genius lay in his willingness and ability to build coalitions of those who are more naturally rivals. This was explicitly his approach in selecting his cabinet, which he built around his three chief rivals for the Republican nomination. Perhaps the most surprising contemporaneous evaluation of Lincoln’s leadership appeared in the extreme secessionist paper the Charleston Mercury. “ He has called around him in counsel,” the Mercury marveled, “the ablest and most earnest men of his country. Where he has lacked in individual ability, learning, experience or statesmanship, he has sought it and found it…. Force, energy, brains, earnestness, he has collected around him in every department.” Were he not a “blackguard” and “an unscrupulous knave in the end,” the Mercury concluded, “he would undoubtedly command our respect as a ruler….We turn our eyes to Richmond, and the contrast is appalling, sickening to the heart.” (p.701)

The most effective coalitions are built from complementary abilities. Yet that makes the functioning of coalitions challenging. His partnership with Secretary of War Stanton illustrates Lincoln’s ability to work with styles different than his own. “No two men were ever more utterly and irreconcilably unlike,” Stanton’s private secretary, A. E. Johnson, observed. “The secretiveness which Lincoln wholly lacked, Stanton had in marked degree; the charity which Stanton could not feel, coursed from every pore in Lincoln. Lincoln was for giving a wayward subordinate seventy times seven chances to repair his errors; Stanton was for either forcing him to obey or cutting off his head without more ado. Lincoln was as calm and unruffled as the summer sea in moments of the gravest peril; Stanton would lash himself into a fury over the same condition of things. Stanton would take hardships with a groan; Lincoln would find a funny story to fit them. Stanton was all dignity and sternness, Lincoln all simplicity and good nature . . . yet no two men ever did or could work better in harness. They supplemented each other’s nature, and they fully recognized the fact that they were a necessity to each other.” (p.560)

It is worth remembering that it is only because of Lincoln’s inclination to go “beyond reciprocity” that he had such a coalition. It was this indomitable drive that Lincoln had sought when he put aside any resentment at the humiliation Stanton had inflicted years earlier in Cincinnati. The bluntness and single-minded intensity behind Stanton’s brusque dismissal of Lincoln at that first acquaintance were the qualities the president valued in his secretary of war.” (pp. 559-560)

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TEAM-BUILDING: Builds groups, prioritizes cohesion.

Building a coalition is one thing. Holding them together or, better yet, unifying them into something beyond a coalition, is another art altogether. This was an on-going challenge with his cabinet. Certainly, Lincoln was not oblivious to the infighting of his colleagues. He remained firmly convinced, however, that so long as each continued to do his own job well, no changes need be made. Moreover, he had no desire for contentious cabinet discussions on tactical matters, preferring to rely on the trusted counsel of Steward and Stanton. Still, he understood the resentment this provoked in neglected members of his administration; and through many small acts of generosity, he managed to keep the respect and affection of his disgruntled colleagues. (p.526)

His closest adviser, Secretary of State Seward, offered to resign in the face of Republican discontent over the state of the war, and with Seward in particular. Many in his cabinet, and beyond, would have been happy to see him go. Aware that “he must work it out by himself” with no adviser to consult, Lincoln “thought deeply on the matter.” By morning, he had devised a plan of action. He sent notices to all of his cabinet members except Seward, requesting a special meeting at 10:30am. When all were seated around the familiar oak table, Lincoln asked them to keep secret what he had to say. He informed them of Seward’s letter of resignation, told them about his meeting with the Committee of Nine [a group of Republican senators who presented Lincoln with a resolution to change his cabinet], and read aloud the paper the committee members had presented to him. He reiterated the statements he had made to the committee, emphasizing how his compound cabinet had worked together “harmoniously, whatever had been their previous party feelings,” and that during the “overwhelming troubles of the country, which had borne heavily upon him,” he had counted on their loyalty and “good feeling.” He “could not afford to lose” any of them and declared that it would not be “possible for him to go on with a total abandonment of old friends.” (pp.490-491) … So Lincoln had brought the cabinet to rally around one of their own. Like family members who would fault one another within the confines of their own household while fiercely rejecting external criticism, the cabinet put aside its quarrel with Seward, based largely on jealousy over his intimacy with Lincoln, to resist the interference of the outsiders. (p.493)

The biggest challenge was building a “team” out of the divided country. He began this effort while the war was still on and continued after the war, on matters both substantive and symbolic. When the assembly quieted down…Lincoln then announced a special request for the band. “I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard …[and] I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it.” This was followed by tumultuous applause. “I presented the question to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance.” In requesting the patriotic song of the South, Lincoln believed that “it is good to show the rebels that with us they will be free to hear it again.” The band followed “Dixie” with “Yankee Doodle,” and “the crowd went off in high good humor.” (p.727) [emphasis added]

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SECTION IV. META-TOOLS. Intentionality, Situation Awareness and Agency are tools for making more effective use of other influence tools. They are the what, when, where, how and why of influence.

INTENTIONALITY: Acting with a goal in mind. Relentless pursuit of goals, eschewing distractions and secondary interests.

Lincoln had a singular goal as President – to preserve the Union. This focus was invaluable as he navigated incredibly complex Civil War years, and especially the slavery issue. Lincoln decided to reply to [New York Tribune founder and editor Horace] Greeley’s letter, seizing the opportunity to begin instructing the public on the vital link between emancipation and military necessity. “As to the policy I ‘seem to be pursuing’ as you say, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt,” he began. “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.” (p.471)

SITUATION AWARENESS: The perception of elements in the environment within time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future.

Herein, [long-time friend and occasionally emissary Leonard] Swett concluded, lay the secret to Lincoln’s gifted leadership. “It was by ignoring men, and ignoring all small causes, but by closely calculating the tendencies of events and the great forces which were producing logical results.” John Forney of Washington Daily Chronicle observed the same intuitive judgment and timing, arguing that Lincoln was “the most truly progressive man of the age, because he always moves in conjunction with propitious circumstances, not waiting to be dragged by the force of events or wasting strength in premature struggles with them.” (p.572)

One of the most important and most challenging issues in Lincoln’s presidency was his decision to end slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation. At some point in his mind it became a question of when, not if. But that was still a huge question. All his life, Lincoln had exhibited and exceptionally sensitive grasp of the limits set by public opinion. As a politician, he had an intuitive sense of when to hold fast, when to wait, and when to lead. “It is my conviction,” Lincoln later said, “that, had the proclamation been issued even six months earlier than it was, public sentiment would not have sustained it.” (pp.501-502)

In the end it was Secretary of State Seward who made the key recommendation to delay (incidentally illustrating the value of multiple perspectives).

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Despite his concerns about the effect of the proclamation, Seward had no thought of opposing it. Once Lincoln had made up his mind, Seward was steadfast in his loyalty to him. He demurred only on the issue of timing. “Mr. President,” he said, “I approve of the proclamation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear…it may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help…our last shriek, on the retreat.” Better to wait, he grandiloquently suggested, “until the eagle of victory takes his flight,” and buoyed by military success, “hang your proclamation about his neck.” Seward’s argument was reinforced later that day by Thurlow Weed, who met with Lincoln on a visit to Washington. (p.468)

“The wisdom of the view of the Secretary of State struck me with very great force,” Lincoln later told the artist Francis Carpenter. “It was an aspect of the case that, in all my thought upon the subject, I had entirely overlooked. The result was that I put the draft of the proclamation aside, as you do your sketch for a picture, waiting for a victory.” (p.468) Thus, he had wisely nullified the premature proclamations issued by Frémont and Hunter, Harper’s Weekly said, waiting until “the blood of sons and brothers and friends would wash clear a thousand eyes that had been blinded.” (pp.607-608)

How did Lincoln manage such astute situation awareness? Lincoln considered his meetings with the general public his “public opinion baths.” They “serve to renew in me a clearer more vivid image of that great popular assemblage out of which I sprung,” he told his visitor, “and though they may not be pleasant in all their particulars, the effect, as a whole, is renovating and invigorating to my perceptions of responsibility and duty.” (p.598)

AGENCY: Shapes situations, influences circumstances to suit needs, challenges status quo, accepts nothing as fixed.

With the Republican National Convention set to begin the following week, Lincoln could rest easy in the knowledge that he had used his time well. Though he often claimed to be a fatalist, declaring that “what is to be will be, and no prayers of ours can reverse the decree,” his diligence and shrewd strategy in the months prior to the convention belied his claim. More than all his opponents combined, the country lawyer and local politician had toiled skillfully to increase his chances to become the Republican nominee for president. (p.236)

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EPILOGUE

Although outside the scope of the Leverage Inventory, a portrait of Lincoln seems incomplete without something about the “bonhomie” with which he lived. Perhaps surprisingly. In this respect he provides an excellent reminder to those of us who too rarely set down the weight of our goals.

While Chase confessed to an unremitting anxiety and Stanton suffered from repeated bouts of exhaustion, Lincoln found numerous ways to sustain his spirits. No matter how brutally trying his days, he still found time in the evenings to call at Seward’s house, where he was assured of good conversation and much-needed relaxation. (p.506)

Hay recorded one occasion, “a little after midnight,” when Lincoln, with amused gusto, read a portion of Hood, “utterly unconscious that he with his short shirt hanging about his long legs & setting out behind like the tail feathers of an enormous ostrich was infinitely funnier than anything in the book he was laughing at. What a man it is! Occupied all day with matters of vast moment … he yet has such a wealth of simple bonhommie & good fellow ship that he gets out of bed & perambulates the house in his shirt to find us that we may share with him the fun of one of poor Hoods queer little conceits.” (p.507)

In closing, a bit of praise from some notable sources.

“I have no doubt that Lincoln will be the conspicuous figure of the war,” predicted Ulysses S. Grant. “He was incontestably the greatest man I ever knew.” (p. 747)

Tolstoy went on to observe, “this little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality had become. Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skillful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character. (p.748)

Lincoln would not be given this esteem had he not successfully held the United States together. Could he have done that if he was less adroit with the tools of influence? Quite possibly not. He certainly left us with a wide range of examples from which to learn. Very few figures provide such apt illustrations across the full range of influence tactics.

Prof. Cade Massey Wharton 2012