Doris Goodwin’s book about that administration, “Team of Rivals”, is usually read as a study in magnanimity. “Compromise” has taken on the texture of an insult. Majorities have to be assembled, then assembled again for the next vote. Otto von Bismarck, no one’s idea of a soft touch, said it plainly: “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.” The case for compromise is not, however, a case for compromising everything, and this is where its advocates, too, often fall silent.