Introduction: The paradox of unity and division
The relationship between family and wealth is a complex one. Wealth can provide a family with opportunity, economic security and even a sense of shared purpose among family members. But, as this wealth passes to future generations, it can also bring up old grudges, competing wishes, inconsistent interpretations about specific distributions and other conflicts concerning how a family’s wealth can contribute to the family’s legacy and the legacies of individual family members. A seemingly cohesive family can begin to break apart. Siblings who shared an amicable childhood are now uncomfortable facing each other and meet only in courtrooms or boardrooms. Relatives who had no direct involvement in building their family’s wealth now fight tooth and nail over competing claims to it. Wealth, intended to be passed down as a gift, becomes a source of division.
This paradox is not new. In fact, it is not even unique to the family dynamic. The US itself experienced a much broader and more destructive kind of conflict, a crisis that unfolded not in a boardroom, but on a battlefield. When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president of the US in 1861, he inherited a divided nation already being torn apart by the forces that would produce the bloodiest conflict on American soil. The institutions, ideals and history that had forged the Union no longer sufficed to bind it together. During the Civil War, states, communities, friends and even families were pitted against each other.
What was once united seemed to be divided beyond repair. However, Lincoln was not willing to accept the permanent breakup of the Union. Even as the war raged, he thought beyond victory to the reconciliation that would need to follow. He led with principles that helped a fractured nation come together again. Those principles are surprisingly applicable to families, and by extension, to the family offices that work with them.
