Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin tells the story of the presidential election of 1860 and the four men who were contenders for the office. Abraham Lincoln was the dark horse, the least known among the four candidates. Thus, as he awaited the Republican Party’s decision about their candidate, the usually calm Lincoln, “With an outside chance to secure the Republican nomination for the highest office of the land... was unable to focus on his work.” After several rounds of voting, Lincoln secured the nomination.

The book tells the story leading up to this unlikely win, as well as Lincoln’s treatment of his rivals upon securing the office of president of the United States. In describing Lincoln, Goodwin notes his well-documented depression and writes, “To be sure, Lincoln was a melancholy man.” Even his melancholy served to Lincoln’s advantage, in Goodwin’s view. She writes,

“Lincoln’s early intimacy with tragic loss reinforced a melancholy temperament. Yet his familiarity with pain and personal disappointment imbued him with a strength and understanding of human frailty unavailable to a man of Seward’s buoyant disposition. Moreover, Lincoln, unlike the brooding Chase, possessed a life-affirming humor and a profound resilience that lightened his despair and fortified his will.”

The other candidates were far more seasoned and experienced than Lincoln. Goodwin writes of Lincoln’s mistake in first coming to Washington as a freshman congressman. He introduced a resolution calling on President Polk to inform the House "whether the particular spot of soil on which the blood of our citizens was so shed" belonged to Mexico or to the United States.” According to Goodwin, the newspapers began to use “the derisive nickname “spotty Lincoln.” However, Lincoln eventually proved to be a fast learner.

Goodwin writes that “Neither Seward nor Chase nor Bates seriously considered Lincoln an obstacle to their great ambition.” Nevertheless, there were many similarities among the candidates. They all shared the "can-do" spirit that characterized the American ethos at the time. The author writes that:

“For many ambitious young men in the nineteenth century, politics proved the chosen arena for advancement. Politics attracted Bates in Missouri, Seward in upstate New York, Lincoln in Illinois, and Chase in Ohio.”

Goodwin notes that this ambition:

“propelled thousands of young men to break away from the small towns and limited opportunities their fathers had known. These ambitious youngsters ventured forth to test their luck in new careers as merchants, manufacturers, teachers, and lawyers. In the process, hundreds of new towns and cities were born, and with the rapid expansion of roads, bridges, and canals, a modern market economy emerged.

Bates traveled farthest... Chase made the arduous journey from New Hampshire to Cincinnati, Ohio, a burgeoning city recently carved from a forest rich with wild game. Seward left his family in eastern New York for the growing city of Auburn in the western part of the state. Lincoln traveled from Kentucky to Indiana, and then on to Illinois...”

Moreover, all but one candidate, Seward, experienced personal loss at an early age. "Chase was only eight when he lost his father. Bates was eleven. Both of their lives, like Lincoln’s, were molded by loss,” writes Goodwin. The overwhelming similarity among them was each candidate’s stance against slavery. The anti-slavery views of the four candidates are a major subject of the book.

Goodwin describes each of the four men. Seward was the front runner. Having been elected to the office of governor of New York and also having served for almost twelve years as senator, his reputation extended well beyond his home state of New York. Chase, a widower, was also...