Leader Analysis: Abraham Lincoln

Background

Abraham Lincoln came from humble origins: he was not born into a wealthy aristocratic family like so many of this nations presidents. Rather, he was born on a Kentucky farm in 1809, and was largely self-educated. He had few books to help him on his way, but after learning to read he used the Bible as his main reference source, and it instilled in him a sense of ethics and rightness that he often relied upon in order to influence others. He had a great memory and could memorize the Scriptures or recall stories that he knew and thus regal audiences with a folksy, down-to-earth manner that was also typically insightful and logical. Lincoln advanced in his career as he grew up by learning law on his own and starting his own law firm with a partner, William Hendon in 1840.

Following his work as a lawyer in Illinois, Lincoln moved into politics, becoming a US Representative in 1847. In Congress, he made a name for himself by challenging President Polk on the matter of the Mexican-American War. Lincoln did not spend much time in Congress, however; and soon he returned home to practice law. He always had an eye on returning to office, and he tried but was not successful until the time was ripe for a shot at the White House.

For the most part, Lincoln did not adopt many controversial positions in his private or in his public life. At a time when the nation was on fire with hot rhetoric from many different political and religious and social view points, Lincoln sought to maintain a balanced perspective. He did not want to inflame circumstances, and as a lawyer he understood the importance of maintaining logic and order at all times. However, as he would show in his later political career in the 1860s, sometimes he used more force than others in his position might have used. But Lincoln had a vision and a mission that he felt compelled to pursue. As a leader of a nation, he believed he had to make difficult decisions that would directly affect the future of the nation.

Lincoln became the 16th US President and the first Republican president of the US in 1861. He inherited a divided nation, torn over the issues of slavery, states rights, and westward expansion, and yet he achieved much during his stint in office. He led the Union to victory in the Civil War, conditionally emancipated blacks throughout the South, and called for peaceful and fair reconstruction when the war was over. Yet he also faced numerous challenges and experienced failure. He was ultimately unable to build a coalition around himself to bring his grand vision to fruition, as radical Republicans objected to his reconstruction plans. He also did not fully end slavery with the Emancipation Proclamationbut he did push Congress to amend the Constitution so as to end the peculiar institution once and for all. At the same time, Lincoln was ambitious, perhaps to a fault, as he himself did not hesitate to violate some the Constitution during the War in order to see the Union prevail (Gooddwin, 2006). Over the course of his leadership as president, he faced several hurdlessuch as lack of popular support and lack of unity; sometimes he acted questionably, but in the end he always held fast to a vision and mission to keep the nation together.

Leadership Successes

One of Lincolns greatest successes was simply the fact that he won election in the first place in 1860. Up until his run for president, Lincoln had only enjoyed moderate success as a politician. He had lost his most recent bid for election in the US Senate. However, he did not let this failure prevent him from continuing his pursuit of office. Instead, he used the freedom he had to give speeches and tours across the nation, speaking often on behalf of other politicians in office and thereby building a base of political support for himself. Moreover, he avoided some of the traps that other speaks fell into at the time. As Burlingame (2020) points out, Lincolns style avoided the wordy moral rhetoric of the abolitionists in favor of clear and simple logic. In so doing, he also avoided offended any of the various groups around the nation. The nation was already torn on the matter of slavery, and with states looking to gain influence in the western territories it mattered a great deal how a politician viewed the issue. Lincoln never ventured into moralizing, but used a sensible, logical approach to the problem and this prevented him from being pegged as an abolitionist, which would have caused one half of the nation to hate him, or as pro-slavery, which would have caused the other half of the nation to hate him. He also made more a national name for himself as a speaker and politician, which helped him when he ran for office of the president in 1860. But most importantly of all during this time, Lincoln had established a solid group of campaign managers and supporters who came to the Republican convention prepared to deal, maneuver, and line up votes for Lincoln (Burlingame, 2020). In other words, he had identified his deficiencies that had caused him to lose his Senate race; and over the course of the following year he had built up support that would enable him this time to win election.

Lincoln also managed to fly under the radar in the lead-up to the nomination. The front runner was William Seward, and as front runner Seward managed to serve as the main lightning rod for criticism from opponents. No one paid much attention to Lincoln because he was not seen as a real contender. Rather than announce himself loudly and draw attention to himself, Lincoln bided his time and waited for Sewards star to dimand then he was able to rally Republicans around himself. Lincoln also had an ace up his sleeve knowing that Seward would be unlikely to carry Indiana and Pennsylvania in the general electionmeaning if Republicans wanted to win the White House they needed another candidate. That is when Lincoln suddenly became the best option. Delegates gathered around him at the convention, and, finding nothing controversial about him in particular gave him the nomination (Burlingame, 2020). This was Lincolns first great success as a leader: it showed that he was able to maintain poise and confidence even as others appeared to be making headway. He had a plan and stuck to it, knowing that in time it would pay offjust as it did.

After defeating Seward to win the Republican nomination, he had to face a fractured Democratic Party in the general election. The Democrats were divided by the fact that if they ran on a pro-slavery plank, no one in the north would vot for them and the Republicans would win the White Housebut if they ignored the slavery issue, no one in the south would vote for them and they would lose the White House. Stephan Douglas tried to convince the Party that it needed to run a middle-of-the-road plank in order to win votes in both the north and the south. But, still, Lincoln had to show that he was worth a vote from northernersand really only northerners since he was not on the ballot in any of the southern states. Thus, he supported the branding of himself as Honest Abe and he picked an issue that was none too controversial to rally people behind: the Homestead Act. This was an Act that would give 160 acres of federal land to anyone who agreed to farm on it. It helped spur the settlement of the western territories, and it gave Lincoln enough appeal to muscle his way through the general election. The other candidates failed to find an issue that would not be divisive: Lincoln settled on one that everyone could get behindan incentive. By incentivizing the populace to vote for him with free acreage he all but ensured that he would have enough popularity among a decent size of the population. He carried almost all of the northern states and thus won the White House.

However, once in office, he had to prove himself. He did that by identifying his mission and vision for the country and pursuing vigorously. He was not popularly supported by the nation, as such popularity would have been impossible in such a divided nation. But he had to prove that he could hold the Union together, and he did that rather cunningly. He appealed to the moral consciousness of the nation once the war with the South was underway. Whereas the main issue was really one of states rights, Lincoln decided to refocus the nations attention on the issue of slavery, which up until then he had avoided because it was such a contentious issue. But now in order to win the heart of the nation he had to change the nature of the what the fight was about. He issued his Emancipation Proclamation in order to give the war a moral tone: it would from that point on be a war about ending slavery and bringing equality once and for all to the United States.

His emancipation of blacks during the Civil War was indeed a game changer, because it meant...…what forces or readiness the opponent had. Lincoln admired Grants fearlessness, and he saw that such fearlessness was exactly what the Union needed.

But the Union also needed a general who would unapologetically enforce Lincolns vision on the enemy: that was Sherman. Sherman understood that in order to end the war, the South had to be utterly crushed, and his plan was to implement a scorched earth campaign through the south to the Atlantic. This plan was unprecedented: total warfare had not really been adopted in any theater up to that point. Taking the war to civilians was unheard of and considered unethical by some. But Sherman saw no other way, and Lincoln realized that Sherman was right: to subdue the South once and for all, the military had to crush the Souths spirit. It had to make its civilians feel the weight of the rebellion.

This choice was not a popular one, obviously, for those in the South, and it caused Lincoln to be hated for generations in the South after the war. While it won the restoration of the Union, it did also reveal a two-sided nature to Lincoln. He was, after all, willing to compromise on legal principles and ethical matters when he believed it benefited his vision and mission: for instance, rather than let secession be settled in Congress or in court, he maneuvered to settle the matter on the battlefield where he believed the Union stood more of a fighting chance. Was this ethical? It can be argued that it was not (DiLorenzo, 2002). Indeed, it may be this more than anything that can be held as a criticism of Lincolns leadership. For is it ever acceptable for a leader to act against ethical principles in order to achieve a vision? The answer is usually no. When Enrons leaders sought to achieve their mission and vision for the company, they too acted unethically by deviously hiding losses in shell companies. They were eventually tried in the court of law. Lincoln was never tried for forcing the secession issue onto the battlefield, where hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their lives in an attempt to settle the matter one way or the other. Yet, Lincoln did pay the heavy price of his authoritarian leadership style by losing his life at the hands of an angry assassin. Perhaps it serves as a warning for other leaders: if one is going to act against ethical principles, one runs the risk of receiving harmful blowback.

Lincoln also struggled to get the radical Republicans to see his side of things after the war had concluded. He wanted to bring the South quickly back into the Union so that the country could be whole once more. The radical Republicans wanted the South to pay for the war and wanted to make sure that southern leaders would never have the opportunity to serve in Congress again. Lincoln thought this was too much. The South had already paid a great deal during the War, thanks in no small part to Lincolns own military policy. But now Lincoln had won, and he thought the attitude of the victors needed to be gracious and understanding.

Perhaps Lincoln realized at the end that he was too quick to provoke a war with the South; perhaps he wished that the matter had been resolved through legal means after so many years of fighting. But whatever inner thoughts and feelings he had on the subject, Lincoln told the nation squarely what it was he now wanted to do: he wanted to join hands with the defeated southern states and welcome them back to the Union without any ill will. He did not want to lay conditions down on them; he did not want to humiliate them further. The South had surrendered, and his mission was accomplished. He had led the nation through many challenges, and had forever changed the landscape of the country. But when he was sworn in for the second time, a new Lincoln and a new leader emerged: he was one who may have seen the limitations and failures of his first term and resolved to do better in his second term. He was certainly more direct, heartfelt, and ethical in terms of how he viewed his new mission and vision for the country. He wanted a country that could enjoy some peace. He wanted a country that would no longer be gripped by impassioned voices calling for more pain. He chose to be an authentic leader at that momentputting a set of clear values forwardvalues that he had learned as a child when reading the Scriptures from one of the only books he possessed in his humble Kentucky̴