Lincoln’s Two-Faced Hatchet Man

Abstract

Lincoln’s Two-Faced Hatchet Man Michael Thomas Smith (bio) William Marvel. Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. xvii + 611 pp. Maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $35.00. William Marvel, the author of many books about the American Civil War, in this new biography examines the life and career of Edwin M. Stanton, whose work as Secretary of War in the Lincoln administration led some to hail him as “the organizer of victory” for the Union (p. xv). Marvel finds Stanton to be much overrated by his admirers, both during his own lifetime and in much subsequent historiography. He particularly finds the 1962 biography of Stanton by Benjamin H. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman to be much too favorable. Although conceding that Stanton possessed substantial legal knowledge and administrative ability and was able to manage the War Department far more efficiently than his corrupt, incompetent predecessor Simon Cameron, Marvel for the most part finds little to praise in Stanton’s career and, especially, little to admire in his character. Marvel argues that Stanton consistently and habitually thrived on self-interested deceit and duplicity throughout his life and career. Stanton would tell his powerful legal and political cronies whatever they wanted to hear and assure them that he shared their principles and ideas, presenting himself as a paragon of rectitude and virtue; meanwhile, he shamelessly participating in various behind-the-scenes political cabals aimed primarily at advancing his own interests. Marvel finds that Stanton’s disloyal scheming and intriguing unfairly hurt the reputation of all three presidents in whose cabinets he served. Stanton served as Attorney General in the last days of the James Buchanan presidency, and Marvel contends that he spread exaggerated stories of his own firmness and Buchanan’s cowardice during the secession crisis, which resulted in Buchanan’s competence and integrity being judged even more unfavorably than he deserved. The author finds Stanton to be largely responsible for the wartime civilian arrests and suppression of the antiwar press, actions that mar Lincoln’s record on civil liberties. And he suggests that Stanton’s collusion with and encouragement of unconstitutional tactics by the Congressional Radical Republicans drove a wedge between them and Andrew Johnson, reducing the [End Page 249] likelihood that the president could find an effective way to work with them and contributing to the period’s bitter political polarization. Marvel finds the root of some of Stanton’s character flaws in his childhood and family experiences. He grew up under “the shadow of genteel poverty” in Ohio (p. 5). His father was a physician with a struggling practice during the economic hard times following the Panic of 1819, which left Stanton obsessed with money and status, and willing to do or say virtually whatever it took to acquire and keep both. The author also finds episodes from Stanton’s early forays into politics and a lucrative legal career to be strongly suggestive of his two-faced amorality. Stanton sought favor with rising Ohio political star Salmon P. Chase, assuring the abolitionist leader that he shared his moral abhorrence toward slavery even though a variety of temporizing reasons prevented him from publicly announcing this position. Marvel also examines Stanton’s famous defense of Tammany Hall politician and future Union general Daniel Sickles on murder charges stemming from the fatal shooting of his wife’s lover, Philip Barton Keyes. Although often remembered as an innovative early use of the insanity defense, the jury’s acquittal of Sickles, Marvel convincingly argues, was due to Stanton’s blunt, unapologetic emphasis on male privilege—that a husband’s ownership of his wife’s body implied the right to defend possession of it with lethal force. He finds these episodes to reveal a man far less honest and guided by idealism than he and his supporters contended, despite his widespread reputation for forthright honesty and integrity and for the possession of sincere Christian faith. Stanton was a prewar Democrat, though his political positions tended to be—probably intentionally—vague. Despite his assurances to Chase of his antislavery principles, he did not publicly endorse Republican presidential candidate Lincoln in 1860, and several of...