In the Shadow of Greatness: Lincoln's VP Hannibal Hamlin
President's Day Special
Vice presidents will never get a day of their own, but Presidents’ Day is also a good day to consider our nation’s second office.
Most surveys show that Lincoln was our greatest president—certainly a fair judgment. These surveys usually place JFK towards the top, which is less so (I have a theory as to why.)
But what of Lincoln’s first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine?
“An Honorable Mediocrity”
Hamlin didn’t have much of a role as VP and unsurprisingly there are few biographies of him. His grandson wrote a long hagiography in 1899, a reviewer described the book as trying to rescue Hamlin from being more than “an honorable mediocrity.” H. Draper Hunt focuses on Hamlin’s time as VP. That may not be completely fair. Mark Scroggins wrote a friendlier biography in 1994.
Since we are focused on VPs, I won’t provide Hamlin’s full biography (but his grandson’s book is available for free.)
Senator Hannibal Hamlin had not sought the vice presidency but brought geographic and political balance to the ticket. Lincoln, a former Whig from Illinois, was a relative moderate in the new Republican party on slavery. Hamlin, a former Democrat from Maine, was associated with the radical abolitionist faction.
Except for Martin Van Buren, vice presidents before Hamlin had almost no role in the administration, they were not invited to cabinet meetings. Lincoln was followed tradition. Still, after the election Lincoln did seek Hamlin’s counsel on cabinet appointments. Lincoln took Hamlin’s suggestion of appointing Gideon Welles as Secretary of Treasury, but also appointed William Seward to State over Hamlin’s objections. Lincoln assured Hamlin that he would welcome Hamlin’s advice.
But this was not how things turned out.
Unwise Veeping
At the time, politics was about patronage—particularly getting friends jobs. Hamlin had built a patronage machine in Maine. Welles described Hamlin as “rapacious as a wolf” in pursuing patronage and eventually the two had a complete falling out over a shipbuilding contract Hamlin sought for a friend in Maine. Lincoln himself grew tired of Hamlin’s requests. While he managed to secure minor posts for friends and relatives, Hamlin described himself as a “only a fifth wheel of a coach and can do little for my friends.”
Lincoln spent much of his time at the War Department. This allowed him to track the war effort but also avoid office seekers who besieged him at the White House. Having the VP as a member of their ranks probably did Hamlin no favors with the president.
According to Scroggins, Hamlin also spent time with the radical Republican faction, which criticized Lincoln’s prosecution of the war for not being sufficiently aggressive. This group was also involved with Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase’s machinations to maneuver himself into the nomination in 1864.
As a student of Veepology, lesson one for the VP is don’t hang out with the president’s critics and enemies. It gives the president every incentive to keep the VP at a distance.
Hamlin loved the Senate. He returned to the Senate after the vice presidency and served two terms (later he served as ambassador to Spain.) But presiding over the Senate was frustrating, since he couldn’t participate in the action. Hamlin did make difficult visits to hospitals to visit the wounded, here too he lamented his inability to offer help. Hamlin had enlisted in the Maine Coast Guard and when his unit was called up in the summer of 1864. Bored and powerless, he declined an offered deferment and served—as a private to set an example. He did guard duty, became company cook, and was promoted to corporal. The one concession to his status as VP was that he was quartered with the officers, not the enlisted men.
Hints of Influence
There were two incidents in which Hamlin was “in the loop” on a major decision. Reportedly Lincoln had Hamlin review the Emancipation Proclamation even before his cabinet. Hamlin praised it and was flattered that Lincoln shared it with him. The source however is Hamlin himself, who made this claim in 1879 and said he made three suggestions to Lincoln, two of which were accepted. Perhaps it is true, Scroggins notes that as a member of the radical Republican faction, Hamlin was a good sounding board for the idea.
The other area where Hamlin was influential was on allowing African Americans to serve in the Union ranks. He had been pressing Lincoln on this point from nearly the beginning of the administration. Hamlin’s son, a Union Major and several of his colleagues came to Hamlin and insisted that they would be pleased to command African American soldiers. The vice president brought them to the president where they made their appeal. After questioning the officers, Lincoln wrote an order to the Secretary of War instructing him to form African American units to be commanded by white officers who were willing to serve with them. Hamlin took to order, along with his son and fellow officers, directly to the Secretary of War, who was very pleased and stated the units would be formed without delay.
The Long Shadow
With wiser conduct, making himself a servant to the president, Hamlin might have played an important vice president. Lincoln needed all the help he could get. But he failed to do so and at the 1864 convention Hamlin was dropped from the ticket. Although bored, Hamlin was willing to continue to serve. The vice presidential nomination went to War Democrat Andrew Johnson. It made sense politically and Hamlin campaigned for Lincoln’s re-election. Lincoln insisted it was the party’s decision, not his. But it’s pretty clear that Lincoln had a hand in the decision. Our greatest president was also a good man, but he was also a politician, and part of the job is shivving people when necessary.
It was a fateful decision, one that casts a long shadow over American history. After Lincoln’s assassination Andrew Johnson pursued reconciliation with the south, at the expense of the freed African Americans.
Things might have been different, and Hannibal Hamlin might have risen to the occasion and emerged as a presidential great or near great. That was not to be. Instead, he goes down in history as “an honorable mediocrity.”
Yet this is no small thing. Hamlin rose to high office from humble origins, driven by a strong work ethic and knack for politics. The defining issue of his political career was opposition to slavery. President Johnson appointed Hamlin to the extremely lucrative post of Collector at the Port of Boston. Hamlin became so disgusted with Johnson’s Reconstruction policies that he resigned and returned to the Senate.
A fine, respectable career in which, at times, Hamlin showed great virtue. Greatness is rare, but such honorable mediocrities can build a great nation and would be a welcome improvement over many of our leaders today.
Speaking of Mediocrity…
Presidents’ Day is a mediocre emblem of our time. Originally, we celebrated the birthdays of our two greatest presidents: George Washington (February 22, 1732) and Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809). Hamlin, later in life, advocated for making Lincoln’s birthday a national holiday. But that would have been too many national holidays too close. So instead we have this generic holiday that just admires presidents in general. Even devoting a portion of a day to pedestrian figures like Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce, to say nothing of truly malign figures like Andrew Johnson, sits poorly.