Team of Rivals

I just finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Abraham Lincoln, Team of Rivals. It's an excellent book; I highly recommend it. I really enjoy reading biographies because they illuminate not only the life of the person being discussed, but they shed so much light on the times in which they lived and the people with whom they interacted and knew. Team of Rivals is not a biography of Abraham Lincoln in the general sense of the word, but rather a biography of his political genius and the men who fought against him for the Republican nomination in 1860 and who would later become members of his cabinet and for the most part, true and loving friends.

I have often underestimated Abraham Lincoln. But then again, I think the Civil War is a much misunderstood time period that is too often reduced into a bloody showdown between the North and South over the issue of slavery. This interpretation, which is the watered down version that most history students get, in no way accounts for the real reasons the Civil War began, how it transformed, and how Abraham Lincoln united the broken country with his humility, intelligence, and mercy. For any one that wants to better understand the Civil War, this book is an absolute must because the Civil War was not begun over the abolition of slavery but rather over an issue of states rights. Most Northerners did not care if slavery was abolished or not, but rather, they did not want slavery to extend into new states like Kansas and Missouri and to disrupt the balance of power between free and slave states. It was Abraham Lincoln who subtly and decisively made the war about freeing the slaves.

Like I said, I have often underestimated Abraham Lincoln because until you understand the complexities of the war, you can never appreciate the brilliance of the man. I was taught that Lincoln was a great man but I had never before been convinced of it. I went to his massive monument in DC and wondered how a person becomes so revered throughout all history when his deeds did not seem monumentally heroic to me and I assumed most of his notroiety came from his assisination (people who die too soon are always over-esteemed, in my opinion*). But I now understand and I truly feel that Abraham Lincoln was guided by something more than just his own good sense. It makes me wonder how different this country would be and how our history would have changed had Lincoln lived. Lincoln has now become one of my favorite presidents.

And now that it is is almost 2pm, I think it's about time that I took a shower and changed out of my pajamas. Next up, I think I'll start Theodore Rex, a biography of Theodore Roosevelt.


* For the record, I don't mean to suggest that deaths of people who die before their "time is up" (like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Heath Ledger, etc.) is not terribly tragic, because it undoubtedly is. But I also think that we tend to idolize these people who never fell from grace or who were only just beginning that we never had time to fall out of love with them. As a result, I think they become a little over-hyped...some of which is justified, but much of which is not.