How was the presidency of Lincolns day different from the presidency today?
Allen C. Guelzo: Surely the most obvious difference was the sheer size. Lincoln ran his presidency with a staff composed of one official secretary, and three others who were actually on other government payrolls; the White House itself actually had a larger staff than Lincoln’s presidential office. He used a vast network of friends and personal acquaintances across the North as private political listening posts, but he had no executive employees anywhere outside Washington. This is one reason why Lincoln’s wartime photographs so often depict a haggard and exhausted man. As a life-long workaholic who struggled to run the machinery of a government at war with only a skeleton crew, he was literally working himself to death. A number of his cabinet departments also had better staff resources than he did. The secretary of the Treasury held in his hand direct appointments to several thousand customs and revenue positions, a number of them quite lucrative; the Postmaster General appointed fif
Related Questions
- Lincoln changed much during his presidency – he even changed his position on issues – how might a politician be viewed today who did the same?
- How is Lincoln viewed by historians today, in terms of how effective a president he was and how important was his presidency?
- How was the presidency of Lincolns day different from the presidency today?
