Hannibal Hamlin of Maine: Lincoln's First Vice-President (review)

176CIVIL WAR HISTORY cious beginning for a set whose publication is timely. Popular currents of the day seem directed towards carrying the Mexican War into some stagnant backwash of American history. Will this view have been accepted by the time the last volumes—to contain an important segment of the evidence—appear? James E. Sefton San Femando Valley State College Hannibal Hamlin of Maine: Lincoln's First Vice-President. By II. Draper Hunt. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1969. Pp. ix, 292. $9.00.) Hannibal Hamlin's chief fame rests on his tenure as Lincoln's first VicePresident , and as a mie scholars have simply noted his election and then turned to other matters. Consequently Hamlin has been relegated to that special limbo particularly reserved for American Vice-Presidents. H. Draper Hunt has attempted to resurrect Hamlin in this sympathetic and well-written biography. He has examined a variety of sources including , in addition to the large Hamlin collection at the University of Maine and other Hamlin materials scattered across the nation, some twenty-five other manuscript collections. The result has been to provide much new information on Hamlin's career as an antislavery Democrat, his service in the Congress before the Civil War, his shift to the Republican party in 1856, his four years as Vice-President and five in unhappy retirement, and his postwar years as senator and minister to Spain. Although Hamlin was active between 1843 and 1882, Hunt has emphasized Hamlin's vice-presidential years, and he has made a solid contribution in discussing the political maneuvering which resulted in Hamlin 's nomination in 1860 and his being dropped from the Republican ticket in 1864. In 1860 the former Maine Democrat neatly balanced the Republican ticket; in 1864 political expediency required that he be replaced by a border state War Democrat. Hunt has clearly demonstrated that the combination of Lincoln's covert support for Andrew Johnson and the attempt by New York Radicals and Charles Sumner to drive from office Seward and William Pitt Fessenden, Hamlin's rival in Maine, led to Hamlin's forced retirement. Sumner, and Seward's New York opponents , hoped that by replacing Hamlin with Daniel S. Dickinson, a New York War Democrat, Seward would have to resign, and Hamlin would be free to challenge and defeat Fessenden for the Senate. Lincoln and Seward's supporters outwitted the Radicals by securing Johnson's nomination, and later Hamlin was unable to unseat Fessenden. While Hunt's treatment of these episodes is excellent, his emphasis on these years is nevertheless unfortunate. Hamlin's role as Vice-President and even his part in the activities surrounding his nomination in 1860 and failure in 1864 were essentially passive and frustrating. Outside BOOK REVIEWS177 of his campaigning in 1860 and his part in the subsequent Cabinetmaking —Hamlin served as a go-between in the appointment of Seward and was responsible for the appointment of Gideon Welles—Hamlin had no authority or power and never served as one of Lincoln's advisors. Thus his position as Vice-President was quite traditional. Furthermore, although his sympathies were close to the Radical Republicans, he apparently had few important relations with them and was ultimately sacrificed by them. Hamlin accepted his nomination as Vice-President reluctantly and always believed (and with good reason) that his service in the Senate was far more important. Hunt's study is further weakened by his relative lack of attention to Hamlin's activities in Maine politics as well as his Congressional career . This material, for which Hunt has relied surprisingly heavily on Charles E. Hamlin's 1899 biography of his grandfather, is handled primarily in narrative fashion. Hunt's explanation of the reasons Hamlin became a Democrat while two members of his family remained active Whigs is unconvincing, and there is virtually no analysis of Hamlin's social and political ideas or his sources of political support. These questions are especially intriguing in that Hamlin's positions often appear to be quite conservative and Whiggish. In addition, there is no detailed examination of Hamlin's rivalry with Fessenden and his later friendship with James G. Blaine. A more intensive treatment of these matters might have said...