Lincoln and the levers of power

‘Lincoln liked using Charles Sumner, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a check against his Secretary of State William Seward, and decided to make it a standard practice. Therefore he designated Sumner as his chief adviser on foreign policy, authorized him to go through all foreign correspondence …and according to his biographer, Sumner now possessed ‘a virtual veto over foreign policy.’

In return for such power, Sumner gave tacit approval to Lincoln’s war policies and became a valuable Lincoln man on Capitol Hill.’