Hannibal Hamlin

[L Verge]

I avoid political history like the plague, but I also consider Lincoln the ultimate "politician," who knew how to pull strings behind-the-scenes. The Republicans needed a strong anti-slavery man from the North in 1860. Also, Hamlin had bolted from the Democratic party to the Republicans because of the slavery issue, and the Republicans needed to appeal to more of those Democrats. That said, however, I'm not sure that Lincoln knew who had been nominated as his running mate in 1860. From what I have read, Hamlin didn't even know that he had been nominated until someone burst into his card game and announced it.

I don't think Hamlin was happy in his "anonymous" role of VP, but in 1864, he was not happy to learn that he had been bounced from the ticket in favor of Andrew Johnson, who had been a strong war governor of Tennessee and who could appeal to Southerners who had remained loyal to the Union. I cheated and found this on a U.S. Senate website:

Dumped from the Ticket

Despite Hamlin's grumbling about the powerlessness of the vice-presidency, he was willing to stand for reelection in 1864. Hamlin assumed that Lincoln supported his nomination, but the president—an entirely pragmatic politician—doubted that Hamlin would add much strength to the ticket in what was sure to be a difficult reelection campaign, with the survival of the nation at stake. Maine would vote Republican whether or not Hamlin was on the ticket, and he carried little weight in any other state. Lincoln sent emissaries to sound out several prominent War Democrats, among them Tennessee's war governor, Andrew Johnson. As the thinking went, to nominate a southerner like Johnson would be a way to "nationalize the Republican party." At the convention, to the surprise of Hamlin's supporters, the Tennessee governor outpolled the vice president on the first ballot and went on to win the nomination on the second. "To be Vice President is clearly not to be anything more than a reflected greatness," Secretary of the Senate John W. Forney wrote to console Hamlin. "You know how it is with the Prince of Wales or the Heir Apparent. He is waiting for somebody to die, and that is all of it." Hamlin maintained a dignified silence but was vexed by his defeat. Years later he wrote: "I was dragged out of the Senate, against my wishes—tried to do my whole duty, and was then unceremoniously `whistled down the wind.' While I have never complained to any one, I did not fail to feel and know how I was treated."

So, in 1860, Lincoln may not have had much - if any - say in Hamlin being his running mate. However, by 1864, he obviously did and wanted someone who he thought could handle Reconstruction as he envisioned it.