Honest Abe

Unlike the rest, President Abraham Lincoln (#16) chose to surround himself by appointing individual cabinet members who were political opponents and independent thinkers often with differing personal agendas. Historian Doris Goodwind further writes that he encouraged principled dissent from his cabinet members because it challenged his own thinking and, “together he and his team could find common ground to forge the most effective policies at a critical time in American history”. -The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln -2005-