How John Kean cut a deal for a no-bid contract with Lincoln

Col. John Kean, the great-great-grandfather of Rep. Thomas H. Kean, Jr., was among the founders of the New Jersey Republican Party in 1856.

Kean was an insider’s insider.   He was the grandson of John Kean, who served in the Continental Congress, and was the great-great-nephew of New Jersey’s first governor, William Livingston.    The title of Colonel was honorific and bestowed upon him by Gov. William Pennington when he served as the governor’s top aide in the 1840s.   He went by Col. Kean  for the rest of his life.  (All George Helmy got was a Senate seat.)

He was a shareholder of railroads in Camden, Middlesex, Union, and Somerset counties, the owner of a bank, and gas and water utility companies.  He owned three water-powered mills on the Elizabeth River.  Two of his sons became U.S. Senators.

In the 1860 presidential election, New Jersey backed a favorite son for the Republican nomination, with former U.S. Senator William Dayton receiving 14 votes from New Jersey GOP delegates on the first ballot.

Kean was supposed to deliver New Jersey’s delegates to New York Senator William Seward on the second ballot, but he wound up cutting a deal with Lincoln.

He lost four New Jersey delegates to Lincoln on the second ballot.  On the third ballot, New Jersey gave Lincoln eight votes, with five going to William Seward and just one holding for Dayton.  Lincoln won the nomination on the third ballot.

Five weeks into the Lincoln presidency, the Civil War began.  Kean received a no-bid contract from the War Department to manufacture gun parts for the Union Army.

During the first year of Lincoln’s presidency, Kean had a conflict with Simon Calderon, the Secretary of War and the great-great-grandfather of former Rep. Tom Malinowski’s stepfather, Blair Clark: at one point, he was forced to take a train to Washington to see Lincoln and complain that Cameron was too slow at paying invoices to the Union Army.  Lincoln wound up replacing Cameron with Edwin Stanton a couple of months later.