Our strange democracy

Abraham Lincoln is lauded as among the very best presidents the US ever had: the statesman par excellence successfully steered the nation through the devastating and perilous years of the American civil war. Not only did Lincoln manage to keep his country united, he also ensured the passage of the 13th amendment to the US constitution, which abolished slavery.

- SHASHI THAROOR

All through these arduous years, Lincoln had by his side in his cabinet three men who had been political adversaries, and had contested against him for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination. Even beyond that, at a time of great national division and acrimony, Lincoln included three Democrats in his cabinet. Most of these men were more educated, and had enjoyed far more political prestige, than Lincoln himself. Yet, he did not hesitate to give them political importance that a lesser man might have feared would diminish him.

Lincoln built around himself what the American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin calls “A Team of Rivals”. He knew that at such a time of great national calamity, he needed all the best hands on deck. So, keeping personal and political egos and rivalries aside, he entrusted his former rivals with governing the US alongside him at its darkest hour. The rest, as they say, is history. Not only did Lincoln manage to keep the union intact and abolish slavery, he also rose by dint, as Goodwin writes, “of a profound self-confidence” to “a most unexpected greatness”, giving the world in the process a masterclass in exemplary leadership.