Origins of the Foreign Policy Partnership, 1801–1861

Abstract

This chapter examines the genesis of the unlikely Lincoln-Seward foreign policy partnership. Attention is given to their respective childhoods and educational opportunities, marriages, family lives, and legal careers. Both men gravitated to politics and moved from the Whig to Republican Party in the 1850s. Despite Seward’s much greater political prominence and success, Lincoln was selected as the Republican nominee for president in 1860 and went on to win the general election. Lincoln then made Seward his secretary of state, established his status as senior partner, and instituted his one-war policy as the administration responded to the South’s secession from the Union.